MobileDevicesToday: not just another mobile tech blog

Late last month, news hit that Forrester Research had purchased Jupiter Research. My immediate thought was to reach out to Michael Gartenberg to see how this affected him, and at the time, he wasn't sure. It didn't take long to find out where he'd land, however. Soon after he announced that he wouldn't be moving on to Forrester, he ended up as the Editor of MobileDevicesToday, another addition to my RSS feeds.

Michael brings his talented analyst skills to the MDT blog, not to mention the many mobile tech industry contacts he's amassed over the years. With that combination, I don't see MDT as "yet another mobile tech blog" because Michael adds solid analysis, opinion and commentary to what's going on within the industry. Take a swing by MobileDevicesToday and see if you agree. Best of luck in the new gig, Michael!

Blog comments should be immediate and easy

This is just a mini-rant for something that has been bothering me for a while and since I just hit it again on a site it's time to speak up.  I believe that one of the greatest values that a blog provides is the exchange of ideas with the readers.  For this to be effective it must be simple and quick for readers to enter a comment.  What bugs me are blogs that force readers to register before they can leave a comment.  Now before you go off on a tangent I understand why sites go this route, I truly do.  But I can't tell you how many times I have read a post on a blog and had something important to add to the conversation, at least from my perspective yet was confronted with a registration process before I could do so.  If you're like me you don't have any free time to begin with and you certainly don't have any to waste with a registration process just so you can add what very well might be the only comment on that blog you'll ever post.  So you probably do what I usually do and in fact did just now.  You leave the site without adding to the conversation.  Somehow I don't think that's what the author wants to happen.

Wordpress for iPhone sets blogs free

I have been enjoying blogging on my iPhone with the TypePad Mobile app that I picked up shortly after getting the iPhone.  There is something liberating about snapping a photo and posting it directly to jkOnTheRun from the phone.  A lot of folks that blog using WordPress have been hankering for the same ability and should be jumping for joy now that the iPhone WordPress app is available.  It looks like it has some additional features over the TypePad client so if you blog on WordPress and have an iPhone you probably want to snap up this app.  It's free too, the best price.  :)

(via Digital Inspiration)

Winner announced for the BlackBerry TypePad Mobile contest!

You probably thought we forgot about announcing the winner of the BlackBerry TypePad Mobile contest, didn't you?  The truth is we got some really good entries and we had to read through all of them several times as it was very hard to choose the one we thought was deserving of the awesome prize package:

• Unlocked BlackBerry Pearl 8100
• Two year TypePad Pro account ($300 value)

After much deliberation we are happy to announce that Vivek Gowri penned the winning post about the UMPC scene:

Significant Changes Coming for the Subnotebook Market
By Vivek Gowri

When the Asus EEE 701 debuted as the "$200 notebook" at Computex 07 last June, it sent a shock through not only the techblog community, but also mainstream media publications as well. In the intervening 5 months to its release, the EEE's price steadily increased, finally going on sale at a $399 price point. (The $299 2G Surf would go on sale later on without some of the niceties, such as upgradable RAM and a webcam.) Now, the price has gone upwards once more, with the 9" 901 model going on sale last week at a price of $549.99 in either Linux or Windows XP flavors, and a Atom based 901 is expected to debut at Computex 08 next month at a price of around $650. To put that in perspective, that's an increase of almost 250% from the original EEE concept. While the extra features are nice, the overall trend is somewhat disturbing, in light of the much increased competition from HP (MiniNote), Via (CloudBook), Intel (Classmate PC and Netbook) and, most recently, MSI.

Just this week, MSI released details and pictures of its new 10" Wind, which looks remarkably similar to the Apple MacBook. At $399, it packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor that is substantially faster than the 900MHz Celeron M in the EEE, a 10" 1024x600 screen with a larger display featuring the same resolution as the 901, a 2.5" 80GB SATA hard drive, 512MB of RAM, 2.5 hour 3 cell battery, a webcam, and Linux. A version with XP, Bluetooth, and a 6 cell battery with 6 hours of runtime will go for $549. Due to the hard drive, the Wind weighs slightly more than the EEE (2.35 pounds as opposed to 2.18 for the 901), but given the extra prowess, it is easily forgiven.

As much as I love Asus, I am forced to admit at this point that the Wind is truly far superior to anything in the EEE range. The Atom processor in the Wind will eat the EEE's Celeron M353 for lunch, and not even pause to spit out the bones, and with an 80GB hard drive, the Wind is far less stifling in terms of storage space, though it is not a solid state disk as in the Asus machines. While this is not optimal, it enabled MSI to keep the price lower and allows for easy upgrading to drives of much higher capacity (up to 250GB and 320GB hard drives, numbers unthinkable in an EEE). Though the mechanical hard drives are heavier, use more energy, and are more prone to failure, none of these are factors enough to change the fact that as of right now, solid state flash technology is simply not economically viable in a $400 device. Consider the fact that the Wind is a whopping 40% cheaper than the EEE 901, while having a much faster processor, four times the hard drive space, a larger screen, and better styling, and it is evident that MSI has a winning candidate on its hands. Even after the EEE gets the Atom processor later this year, it will be far too expensive to compete successfully with the Wind. The EEE 701 cannot be mentioned in the same sentence as the Wind, even though they share the same $400 price point. The MSI is so much more advanced in every way compared to the 701 that it's comical to the point of tragedy. 150% higher clockspeed (the EEE 701 is underclocked to 630MHz), 20 times the hard drive space (!), 60% more screen real estate, you name it
.
So how should Asus combat the growth of its latest competitor? It should start by dropping prices drastically. Make the 701 4G as the lowest end model, at $250-300. Make a version of the 901 with 12GB flash and Linux and put it at $450, keep the 20GB Linux one at $550, and put XP on the Atom based 901 at $650. As flash prices continue to drop, keep lowering prices, and as Atom becomes more readily available, put it into the lesser models in the EEE range. Use the SSD factor to combat the fact that the Wind has much more storage space. This is only a short term fix, however. As the EEE continues its climb into the upper price echelons, it needs to become a more upmarket device in the manner of the HP MiniNote. However, at the same time, it needs to continue to dominate the lower price points, where people can impulsively throw out $400 for a notebook and not think twice about it. How can they accomplish this? Split the EEE into two lines. Make a polished model with good styling and some metal in its build for the higher end markets, and have a full plastic model like the current 901 at $400. I wish Asus luck in keeping its slice of this surging market. May the best subnotebook win.

Join me in congratulating Vivek on a very thoughtful blog post!  Vivek, please email either Kevin or I (click on our cartoon head in the right sidebar) with your shipping address so we can make sure your prize package gets on its way to you.  We'll also make sure you have all the information you need to activate your two year TypePad account.  Let the blogging begin!

First post from my Blackberry

Now that the Blackberry client for TypePad is out I just had to try it. Now I really wish ny 8830 had a camera!

SixApart launches native TypePad application for BlackBerry devices

One of the ways we covered this year's Consumer Electronics Show was to use a Windows Mobile client for TypePad, the blog platform we've used here at jkOnTheRun since day one. The application worked amazingly well as we took pictures of devices and added a brief description as time allowed. One button push later and you saw what we saw.

Today, SixApart launched a native TypePad mobile client for BlackBerry devices. Hey, why should Windows Mobile folks have all the fun, right? The free application can be grabbed here for your Curve or Pearl and of course, you'll need a TypePad account to use it (but you're smart enough to have figured that part out on your own). With the mobile app, you can use your 'Berry's camera to capture an image, bang out a post, save the draft, edit it and BAM! you're a mobile blogger! Seriously, it's that easy.

The full press release follows the jump but you'll want to stay tuned for contest kickoff shortly here at jkOTR. Of course we couldn't possibly be giving away a free application (and still have street-cred), but it could be a... oh, just read the press release first. By the time you're done, we'll either have the contest going or you'll already have guessed what the giveaway is!

CNN visits Mobile Tech Manor- how we do all this great content

How we do it.

Wow, it seems they visited Gear Diary too!

The power of blogging- reaching out and touching people

Blogging is a phenomenon of epic proportions, of that there can be little doubt.  A lot has been written about blogging and how it's become the new form of journalism but to me it's so much more than that.  I have done a lot of self-reflection lately and realize the power of blogging is in the platform it creates to reach out and touch folks.  Blogging is much more personal than journalism by design and it is astounding how it can allow bloggers to touch readers.  I have made it a personal goal to touch at least one person a day through my blogging and I can tell you when that happens it feels good.

Touching people is a fuzzy phrase that can mean a lot of different things.  It can be simple advice to improve someone's ability to do their work or it can be something that truly affects someone's life in a big way.  I am fortunate to have a big audience with the blogging that I do.  My blogging is read by millions of people over the course of a year which blows me away when I think of that.  That readership is bigger than the circulation of all but a handful of newspapers in the US I'll bet.  Think about that for a moment, blogging has given me the potential to touch millions of lives over time.  The trick is to make the best of that legacy.

I hear from people all the time who describe how something I blogged has affected them.  Sometimes in a good way but sometimes not so good.  Either one is OK, it shows that something I blogged has touched them in such a way that made them think about it.  There's nothing wrong with that.  I've heard from folks from all over the world who told me that something I blogged touched them deeply.  It doesn't matter what was blogged if it touches someone that way.  There are very few things in this life better than the feeling I get when someone tells me they have been touched in a good way.  How many opportunities in life do we have to do that?  Blogging opens up this in a tremendous way and it's a great thing for me. 

I heard from someone this past weekend who has a disability who shared that advice I blogged enabled him to put something together that has made a big impact in his ability to do things in life.  How much better can it get than that?  Knowing that something blogged has made such a big impact on someone who needs all the help they can get is priceless to me.  Blogging provides a platform to do good things and these deeds aren't always obvious as such.  Those are the best kind, the simple blogging that makes someone's life better.  It makes this all worthwhile so those of you who blog think about that.  You are appreciated.

Are bloggers journalists?

A topic has been discussed recently by a bunch of A-list bloggers that crops up from time to time as apparently these A-list bloggers are a bit obsessed by it.  The conversation deals with whether bloggers are journalists and how bloggers should act if so.  I know this is a bit off-topic for jkOnTheRun but it keeps coming up and I want to share my thoughts on it.  Now I know that these A-list bloggers will not even see this as they only read each other but here goes anyway.  First of all I understand why these bloggers are concerned about it as there comes a certain level of responsibility when a blogger gets outspoken enough to get a big audience.  With a public forum comes a level of awareness with what the blogger says that means the blogger should act with an appropriate deportment whether he/she likes it or not.

I don't particularly worry about whether I should be considered a journalist or not.  I have been referred to as a journalist by main-stream media (MSM) for what that's worth but I don't really care.  You see the way I view it it doesn't matter if the blogger thinks he/she is a journalist or not.  It also doesn't matter if MSM thinks the blogger is a journalist or not either.  The only group that matters at all is the readers.  Yes, these bloggers should only worry what their readers think of them, not each other.  With a public forum comes a big responsibility in what bloggers say and do.  A few simple rules that I follow would go a long way to alleviating the concern in the minds of the A-listers.

1. Always tell the truth.  It doesn't matter how trivial the topic or how serious.  The truth will set you free and keep you that way.
2. Opinions matter but only if they are clearly identified as such.  Don't pass opinions off as fact and your readers will keep trusting what you say.
3. Never quote a statistic without revealing the source.  Bloggers are starting to fall into the same pit that MSM journalists often fall into by quoting some arcane statistic that is meaningless.  Let the reader decide if the source means it's a reliable statistic or not.

These rules may seem to be simple common sense as they are but they are violated so much every single day by bloggers and even MSM journalists.  Trust is earned and must be kept and these rules will help see that it lives.  Trust is the key ingredient in the relationship between bloggers and their readers and is not guaranteed nor should it be.  Earn it with the truth and you'll keep it a long, long time.  Until you violate one of these rules and your intentions start getting questioned.  That's my take on it, anyway.

Another prolific blogger lost to us. Peace to you, Russell Shaw

I'm saddened by the news that we've lost Russell Shaw, who passed away Friday night unexpectedly. I had the pleasure to virtually work alongside of Russell when we both blogged for Weblogs, Inc. Russell covered the Blackberry scene for several years and then moved on to ZDNet to cover VoIP and broadband. I always enjoyed Russell's writing and he will be sorely missed. Peace to you, my friend.

TypePad Mobile for iPhone released

I hope this doesn't mean I'll need to double my daily post quantity, but TypePad just made it easier to blog from the iPhone. I tried to use the standard TypePad interface in Safari when I first bought the iPhone and while it generally worked, I was unable to add any images. The standard interface was also a bit clunky for a mobile device and I didn't feel like I could use it on a regular basis with the handheld. That all changes now that TypePad has a mobile client specifically desgined for the iPhone. The new interface complements their already existing web clients for Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian and is easy to access at http://i.typepad.com. Kudos to Jenn K. Lee for giving me the heads up! Jenn, if I write twice as many posts, it's all your fault. ;)

I spent a few minutes with the new client this morning and it looks very usable with a few minor nuances; direct image uploads aren't possible, which makes sense since you're really not storing images other than your own photos on the iPhone. You have to e-mail images to the TypePad server for any availability. Additionally, I didn't see a way to select multiple categories for posts so I had to finish this post on a full web client.

Yes there is a Wordpress editor for the Nokia N800

I have a Nokia N800 but not a Wordpress blog but if I did I'd be all over it if someone pointed out a Wordpress blog editor for the little mobile device.  Mobile maven Oliver Starr of BlogNation has indeed pointed out an editor for the N800, WordPy, which is designed to make it easy to make blog posts from the N800.  According to Oliver WordPy will let you save posts for uploading at a later time meaning you'll never lose another post in progress due to problems again.  Oliver's rating:

All in all, I give WordPy pretty high marks. It seems to do just about everything one would wish for on an ultra-ultra mobile device and with the small issue of finding the correct URL for set up it seems to have reasonably good usability, particularly for a 0.4 release of the software.

If you haven't heard already good friend Marc Orchant recently left ZDNet blogs for BlogNation and with Marc and Oliver onboard I didn't waste any time getting them into my feeds.  I highly recommend you do the same.

iPhone as a mobile blogging tool?

Yep, I just had to try it since it runs a full browser. Using the on-screen keyboard certainly works, but it's cumbersome at best. Adding Bluetooth support for an external keyboard would be nice, but without a stand for the phone it would be awkward. This exercise really shows the glaring omission of a basic cut and paste feature as well. That ought to explain why there's no links in the post; manually typing a lenghty URL isn't something I'd enjoy on a regular basis. Oh, and that lack of an easily accessible file system puts the kabosh on any images, at least on TypePad, which is what we use here. Luckily, I also have my UMPC so I went in and added the pic. Otherwise, the post was created entirely on the iPhone. I wouldn't have thought to try this on a Windows Mobile or Nokia device simply because the screens aren't big enough and it would be a challenge without a QWERTY keyboard of some type. It's not an optimal blogging tool, but is good in a pinch!

8 Random Things about me

Tag, I'm it. James tagged me in this blogspheric get-to-know-you game; I'd hate to be a spoil sport and not reply, so here goes:

• I owned three cars before I even had a license to drive. All three were Ford Mustang's from the 1960's; my father and I used two for parts and ended up with a sweet '66 that had a rare bench seat in the front.
• I essentially flunked out of college after two years. Personal quote: "Freshman year was the best two years of my life." I ended up taking a full-time job with the University and over the next five years, retook all of the classes I failed and was able to pull the GPA up to get right into graduate school.
• After several years of not training, I jumped into the Philadelphia Marathon with six weeks of 'preparation'. I limped to the finish in around four and a half hours. Two years later, I finished the Chicago Marathon over 70 minutes faster. Amazing what a little training can do. ;)
• I grew up a New York Yankees fan: favorite player was Thurman Munson and I can still remember the day he died unexpectedly.
• Keeping with the sports theme I've got going: I went to high school with a guy who was drafted by the Cardinals in the NFL. I've been a die-hard (and miserable) Cardinals fan ever since. I also did a whirlwind, under 24-hour trip to Phoenix simply to attend Pat Tillman's memorial service at ASU. He deserved my time and respect.
• Favorite books are the "Lord of the Rings" series. I read the books one summer in the late '70s and I've re-read them at least once a year since then.
• I'm not a beach person, I think it's giant box of cat litter. Barb and I tend to vacation in the mountains....bigger cats and no litter.
• I listen to music constantly...probably about 12 hours a day, or roughly the same amount of time I'm reading.

So, who would I like to know more about? How about:

ThoughtFix

Dave Zatz

jezlyn

Sammual James - McLoughlin

Mobility Site contests a-plenty! Phones and more up for grabs!

While most folks here in the States are relaxing and enjoying the holiday, there' s no rest for the weary over at Mobility Site. Chris Leckness just spent the better part of a few weeks merging his Aximsite and Mobility Site communities so you can catch all of your mobile device news in one place. As if that wasn't enough work, he's running dozens of contests over the next few weeks. You can catch the details and all of the prize packages right here. The biggies are shown above however....how about an 8 GB iPhone,  iPaq 6920,  Cingular 3125 and  Mio A701 for starters? Chris says that some contests will run for a few days, while a some will only last for a few short minutes, so get that Refresh button ready!

Ink blogging from the Nokia N800

No, I haven't done it but Michael Connick has.  Take a look at this:

To find out how he does it check out his post.

TypePad breaks CAPTCHA- massive comment spam ensues

I should formalize my earlier report about our problem with comment spam since I have a little more information about it and I am hearing from other TypePad bloggers who are also affected.  Last Friday TypePad apparently made changes to the CAPTCHA feature that up until that point had been very effective in eliminating comment spam.  The changes they made broke CAPTCHA so that even if it is turned on in the settings it doesn't work nor does it appear when someone posts a comment.  It didn't take spammers very long to realize this as we immediately began getting hit with 100s of spam comments, and I've spent a great amount of time this weekend dealing with them all.  The latest word from the TypePad support folks is to see how it goes after the weekend so I'm hoping that means they are fixing it.  I sure wish they would just roll back the changes they made that broke CAPTCHA, but apparently that must not be an option.  I can't think of any other reason they would subject the massive number of TypePad blogs to what must be millions of comment spam messages when they already had a good system to trap it.

New version of Live Writer available

Does Marc Orchant ever sleep?

Quick shout out to fellow Microsoft Tablet PC MVP Marc Orchant. He clearly has too much free time on his hands since he's added another blog to his repertoire! It must be the Tablet PC platform that makes him so productive. Hop on over to his new Platform Agnostic blog for thoughts on technology, productivity and ideas. I wonder how much of a coincidence it is that "Platform Agnostic" launched very near to the day that Dell started offering Ubuntu Linux pre-installed? ;)

Ink blogging with Live Writer

Live Writer

Ink plug-in

Stealth Blogging- a Primer (text version)

This is a text version of the original post that was made in ink. I am always encouraged to blog more in ink but then get complaints about my poor handwriting.  Thus this text version.

Stealth blogging is blogging from any location where you typically are not supposed to blog. For me that usually means long, boring meetings where my presence has been requested but in reality is not required. So for me, lots of boring dead time + Tablet PC   + EV-DO = Stealth Blogging.

Obviously a key objective to Stealth blogging is to not get caught, something that is fairly easy to avoid with a few simple rules.  Here, then, is The Stealth Blogging Primer.

Stealth Blogging Primer

1) Ink or no go.  No matter how clever you think you are, using a notebook or smartphone to Stealth blog will not work. You will be caught. Inking on a Tablet PC or UMPC is the only safe way to Stealth Blog. You have been warned.

2) Pre-condition your "audience".  Use your Tablet for taking ink notes at every meeting, get everyone used to seeing you use that Tablet for real note taking so they won't be able to tell when you are really stealth blogging. Be prepared.

3) Sit strategically.  Front and center will just not do when Stealth Blogging. Sit at the end of the table and make sure no one is behind you. From the front it will look like you've taking notes, from behind they can see when your web browser is open.  Blog smart.

4) Pay attention.  Keep some of your attention on the meeting. It's embarrassing to be addressed and not realize it.  Keep at least 25% of your concentration on the conversation around you. Don't tune out.

5) Recovery. If you Stealth Blog much eventually you will be addressed when you don't know what's going on, no matter how hard you try to follow #4 above. If this happens don't panic, simply state you were writing detailed notes on the last topic, and ask them to repeat the question. Simple yet effective.

6) Don't browse. Doing quick reference for your blog post is OK, that's what you have EV-DO for. Keep it to a bare minimum, however, as the web will suck you into the vortex if you are not careful. You know it will.

7) Don't smirk or laugh. No matter how clever or funny your Stealth Blog post is, don't laugh and especially don't smirk. It will be mis-interpreted.

These are just a few rules that will go a long way to keep the Stealth Blogger scribbling away without trouble. Lets face it, the world is dying to read your opinions and the words of wit you need to share.

Note: this entire entry was written during a 3 1/2 hour boring meeting without any of the participants catching on. These rules do work. I'm pretty sure that if Stealth Blogging was a Wikipedia entry that this post would be listed as the world's longest Stealth Blog entry.

James Kendrick

The Stealth Blogging Primer

Good use for Tablet PCs in meetings

Sitting here blogging and checking email during a boring meeting. No one the wiser as it looks like I'm taking notes as usual on the Tablet PC. 

Gotta Be Mobile opens bureau down under

Great news over at Gotta Be Mobile today: the Tablet PC team is expanding and now includes Hugo Ortega! Although I only know Hugo by his on-line reputation and passion, he's quite a character and I know he'll add tremendous value to the already talented team at GBM. I expect we'll see all of the breaking Tablet PC and UMPC news about 12 hours earlier with the 'down under' news bureau. Congrats!

BlogJet 2.0 YouTube test

I have already mentioned the release of BlogJet 2.00 and so far I am really liking the new version.  One of the new additions is the ability to embed YouTube videos with just a click so I wanted to test it.  Here for your viewing pleasure is our latest video (Origami Experience) we’ve posted on YouTube:

This video insertion just required me to copy the video link, choose YouTube Video from the Insert menu and it automatically did the rest.  Very nice work from the BlogJet folks. 

BlogJet 2.0 released

This will only be of interest to bloggers but today a new version of BlogJet was released (finally).  Version 2.0 has a total interface overhaul and looks pretty good so I upgraded ($20) and am using it to post this item.  I have been using BlogJet for some time and it looks like they put a lot of work and addressed some of the problems with the previous version.

It's "meme" time again and I'm it

It's kind of funny if you ask me. Bloggers by their nature and passion are about the most open group of people I can think of. Ironically, we keep finding ways to open up more and more. Just when you thought it was safe, you never know when you're going to get tagged and have to share even MORE openness with the world!

I just got tagged; this time by Dave Zatz. The meme this time around is to share five things about yourself that most folks don't know. I tend to share TMI more often than not, so this is actually a challenge for me. After much thought and in an effort to have you get to know me more than you probably want: here's my five.

• Like many folks back in the day, I took the SATs for college. One difference: I took 'em 7 times, including one time in seventh-grade as an invite to a study by Johns-Hopkins University. Funny...I never heard about the results of that study.
• Keeping with the good 'ol high school memories: I set a school record in the 800m track event my junior year. The record stood for about 15 years when some faster whippersnapper doubled around the track in just under two minutes. Nice job, BTW!
• As much I like my comfortable home office with complete connectivity, I thoroughly enjoy backpacking (not camping) for days at a time. Last hike: a 50-miler in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire.
• I once "lived" in a train station for 3 days and had to beg for money to get back to Philadelphia. I'm not proud of it and that $19 train ticket was the hardest thing I've worked for in my life. Quite a humbling experience too.
• I've been known to give presents on my birthday to the people that mean the most to my life. I personally think we all have birthdays backwards: what did you do that was so special on the day you were born? I figure everyone else did the hard work and they have to put with my crap during the year, so it's my gesture of thanking them.
• I'm not an actor, but I do play one in our jkOTR video reviews. Oh wait...that's six things.

Like I said: probably more than you wanted to know, but if you're going to blog, you've got to put yourself out there. So, who am I tagging? How about:

• James Kendrick (I'm sure there's still an item or two that we all don't know about him)
• Kathy Sierra from Creating Passionate Users
• Scott McNulty from TUAW Edit: via Twitter, Scott tells me "no tag backs" as he was already tagged; however he's being a good sport!
• Phil Ferris, our jkOTR tipster from the UK
• Alexander Grundner from eHomeUpgrade
• Steve Paine from Carrypad

This is actually a good test to see if these folks have Technorati "ego searches" as I'm not shooting them an e-mail. Of course, they could be jkOTR readers too; one can only hope.

Ink blogroll continues to grow: Phil Ferris joins in

The unofficial "think ink" concept carries on: jkOTR reader Philip Ferris is experimenting with ink blogging and proves that anyone can handwrite more legibly than James...but just barely. Oh, we're kidding Phil! What's different about Phil's approach is that he's using Phatware's Phatpad application on his VGA-capable Dell Axim X51v, so the ink posts are saved as image files. He then shoots them up to Flickr and posts them to his blog from there since he currently doesn't own a Tablet PC or UMPC. That will definitely work, but other approaches like Sumocat's Build 52 are definitely worth checking out if you have an ink-capable computer; in Build 52, you can add links to your ink! Great job, Phil; keep us up to date on the progress!

Buy.com launches News & Reviews- jkOnTheRun participating!

There is no question that buy.com is one of the biggest and best online retailers around and the good folks over there are always looking for ways to add value for their customers.  We are excited to announce that buy.com has added News & Reviews to their site and they are licensing content from a handful of blogs for the new section.  Kevin and I are both extremely happy as jkOnTheRun is one of the blogs that buy.com has selected to provide content for the new section on their site.  You can see jkOTR content already on the new site and you may see some reviews from us appear there from time to time.  The new section is easy to access, just click the News tab on the main site like in this pic:

Once you are in the News & Reviews section you will find excerpts for the most recent content contributed and you can drill down for the complete articles.  There is lots of tech news and you’ll find some entertainment news as well.  This effort by buy.com bodes well for blogging in general as it shows that major retailers can benefit from the efforts of bloggers.  I hope we’ll see other retailers follow suit in the future.  See you on buy.com!

I propose a new phrase: "Circular Meme"

I'm sure Om is happy that folks are reading the Microsoft Zune news, but if they follow Techmeme like I do, I think they're going be reading in circles for quite some time. Note the last link as a circular reference to the main link: it's Techmeme pointing to itself courtesy of the Promocharger reposting of Om's story from Techmeme! [Say that five times fast!]

John Hill is blogging!

Tablet PC owners are no doubt familiar with Allegiance Technology Partners (ALLTP) and we’ve mentioned them many times in the past on jkOnTheRun.  I got a note from owner John Hill that he is now blogging and intends to focus on sharing tips, tricks, and other information about Tablet PCs.  This is great news and I am already following John’s blog and it is highly recommended.

Welcome to the blogosphere, John!

A UMPC brings the Tiny Screenfuls podcast back!

In the beginning...there was the TinyPodcast. Then came the dark times...where's Brian? Where's Josh? What ill fate found the podcast.....time went on....until.....Josh got the Samsung Q1 UMPC on loan from Intel! They're back, baby!

Josh alluded to a new toy for testing when he recently interviewed Aaron Tersteeg over at Intel; in fact, the Q1 in the video interview is the very device that Josh got to use. Brian has owned a Q1 for some time, so they devote a full hour to their thoughts in the latest and greatest TinyPodcast. Josh enjoyed the test unit, but is already thinking of a different UMPC....the R2H. Welcome back boys....we missed ya!

Vote for the "Make me Mobile with Motion" essay winner

Did you get an entry in to GottaBeMobile for a chance win that decked out, Motion LS800 Tablet PC? They're down to the five finalists and the winner is up to you! That's right: you get to pick from the five finalists and let me tell you: these are five great essays. Hop over to GottaBeMobile for the details and the forum link to the essays. Then, just pick which essay YOU think was the most creative and deserves to win.

Houston Chronicle "gets" blogging

You may be aware I do a blog discussing mobile phones (jkOnThePhone) on the Houston Chronicle and while I may be biased I think their web site is as good or better than any newspaper’s web site.  Today a problem with the power company has knocked out power to a large section of downtown Houston and that included the Chronicle’s offices and servers for the web site.  Rather than have no web site providing the day’s top news items the Chronicle shows how they “get it” about blogging and the main URL now directs you to an emergency blog where you can get all the news.  A newspaper using a blog as an emergency web site, now that’s really cool.

GottaBeABetaTester? We can help

Hey, all the cool kids are doing it. I'm talking about beta testing and getting a first look at something exciting. If you want to in the "cool kid crowd" and lend a hand at the same time, why not help Dennis, Rob, Warner and Matt test their new forums over at Gotta Be Mobile? I can't think of a better way to help out a trio of tableteers, since most of what they do ultimately helps you. How 'bout it, can you lend a hand?

EngadgetHD hits the airwaves

OK, here's a second OT post and a second HD post. Sounds like a trend to me...just wanted to give a shout out to EngadgetHD. My old haunt, HDBeat, has become part of the Engadget brand and I couldn't be happier for Ben, Matt, Richard & gang. It's a sentimental thing really as those guys helped me build HDBeat from nothing to an oustanding high-def resource. To see it blossom into EngadgetHD, well....it's like watching your kids grow up. Minus the all night parties, cutting class and talking back, that is. ;)

Best of luck on the new diggs gang!

Cheryl is ink blogging from a Q1

Ink bloggers are everywhere, not just in the cartoon world. Cheryl has her husband's Q1 while he's away on business; we won't mention that work actually bought the Q1 (oops...cat's outta the bag). So while Cheryl gets to play nice with Q1, she's also testing out some ink blogging on the small screen. Like most of us moving from an active digitizer to a touch-screen, the inking can be a little rocky at first. However, after viewing Cheryl's latest ink post from the Q1, I think she's doing better than most of us right out of the gate! What do you think?

-kct

Mobile web invention or re-invention?

I can't take any credit away from Dave Winer; we all have much to thank him for today with his work on web and syndication technologies. I've been watching his site over the past few days as he's working on the "river of news" concept now that he has a Blackberry. Josh Bancroft points out astutely that mobile content aggregation is nothing new; I'd agree and I think that Dave is kicking tires right now as he demonstrates the mobile river with high profile sites. My guess is that Dave creates a new tool or platform that publishers can use to mobilize their content, even though there are already a few out there.

I'm curious how many folks read RSS content on phones, smartphones and other very mobile devices (meaning not full-fledged PCs). What aggregator is your fave? Do you like Dave's view of the New York Times or do you prefer it in your aggregator? Oh and just for fun: what do you think of this mobile content: thanks to a tip from Josh, this is a Google formatted view of jkOnTheRun without images.

-kct

Sumi Ink joins the world of ink blogging

Following in the footsteps of ink-bloggers like Sumocat and others, please welcome Susy Doyle to the ink-blogosphere. Susy is a fifth-year graduate student and just spent several weeks dealing with a power issue on her HP TC1000 tablet. Like any good Tablet PC user, Susy upgraded her slightly maimed device and now has a TC1100 to replace it!

Armed with the new Tablet PC, Susy is all set to blog again and I see that her return to blogging includes ink posting! Welcome (back) Susy; looking forward to your Tablet PC and mobile tech thoughts...

-kct

Truly mobile post from the XV6700

Since we wrote about the new TypePad Mobile client, you know we just had to try it! Using the very lightweight client on my Windows Mobile Smartphone, I quickly snapped this pic of the latest Vista build as I'm setting up the speech recognition. The TypePad Mobile app is working great; I don't see any way to attach URLs, so that was done afterwards on the Vista machine. Oh no; I just realized that now folks will expect us to be blogging EVERYWHERE we go....sorry James! ;)

-kct

TypePad supports blogging from handhelds

Not that I'd want to blog solely from a Windows Mobile device, but it's nice to know you can. I've seen software options for blog platforms over the past two years, but TypePad just joined the fray with their TypePad Mobile application. It's not just Windows Mobile actually, TypePad Mobile is supported on the Palm (shown) and Symbian platforms as well. The new application is a direct result from SixApart's purchase of SplashBlog earlier this year.

Again, if you're a heavy duty TypePad blogger like James or me, this wouldn't be your main client. This is perfect for the occasional post while on the road or for a photo album blog. Come to think of it, with a camera-enabled handheld, TypePad Mobile would be killer for a photo blog, much like SplashBlog was. The download is free and available directly through the SixApart folks; you can pull it down directly from your handheld at this link.

(via Pocket PC Thoughts)

-kct

Gnomedex 6 gets kickin'

The Gnomedex conference, started by head Gnomie Chris Pirillo, kicks off tonight with a reception, followed by several days of roundtables by top bloggers. I don't see any info on a live feed or .mp3's for later listening, but we'll keep an eye open. You might think "Why would I care, since I'm not a blogger?", but there are plenty of tech bloggers and podcasters that I'm sure you follow. Folks like Josh Bancroft, Todd Cochrane, Niall Kennedy, and even Chris himself.

Hey, if you're interested in the full list, you can add 'em all to your Outlook contacts, courtesy of a little OPML and scripting!

-kct

Listen in live on BloggerCon IV

BloggerCon IV is going on this very second and thanks to mobile tech, you can tune in to listen to a live stream; I'm listening right now on the Q1 via EV-DO and the 32 kbps stream is more than clear enough. BloggerCon started up in 2003 and brings together some of the best bloggers in the world including names like: Doc Sears, Phil Torrone, Doug Kaye, Steve Gillmor, Chris Pirillo and many more. Here's the stream.

-kct

Sumocat's Tabletscape theory and the Kendrick corollary

What are the odds of using logic in two posts back to back. C'mon, there's gotta be a freeware app somewhere for this! Sumocat the Wise (also known as the Initial Ink Blogger in some parts) has mind-mapped his theory that Warner Crocker is the center of the Tabletscape. It's quite a compelling theory now that Warner has joined the GottaBeMobile tablet-crime fighting team of Rob and Dennis. For those that have only seen the MindJet MindManager visual mind-maps, you might want to see an organized text output version that is often overlooked when folks discuss MindManager; Sumocat provides the theorem proof here.

Let's not miss the Kendrick corollary here either. Ever the intelligent, inquisitive ink-blogger, Sumocat bases his Tabletscape Theory with the starting point that James Kendrick is the "All-Father of Mobile Computing". As wise a choice as King Solomon himself would make, Sumocat; if not wiser. If I could respectfully request one thing it would be to change the title to "Grandfather" of mobile computing. It seems more appropriate for one reason or another. ;)

(via GottaBeMobile)

-kct

Engadget high on top 100 products of the year; we figure to be 101st

Props to the talent of Peter, Ryan and the whole gang over at Engadget as the site was named the 13th best product of the year in PC World's best 100 products of the year. I'm sure they got a call with the good news; I'm watching out my door for someone to deliver a telegram saying we just missed the top 100...hmm...do they deliver telegrams in the dark? Actually, they don't deliver telegrams any longer, do they? ;)

All kidding aside, this is a great honor for the Engadget team and they beat out some killer products like HD-DVD, Google and many, many more! Nice job guys!

-kct

The Mobile Gadgeteer is umasked at ZDNet

PalmSolo: lost distant cousin to Han Solo? No, not quite. I'm sure you all recognize Han Solo, but I'll bet some of you know the name PalmSolo; that is if you've been reading Geek.com at any point in the past five years. Today, PalmSolo is unmasked. Today PalmSolo sheds his alter-ego and comes out of the gadget closet at The Mobile Gadgeteer; a ZDNet blog written by real life Matthew Miller!

I just got wind of his new gig and I couldn't be happier. If you have any interest in gadgets, surely you must have read some of his informative posts at Geek.com. Matthew is a self-proclaimed "serious gadget geek" and has owned over 50 mobile devices. I'm sincerely looking forward to his work over at The Mobile Gadgeteer and I hope you wish him well and give him a read. Hey, start with the first post that gives you some of his background, why don't you? Best of luck Matt!

-kct

Six Apart acquires SplashBlog

I have been using SplashBlog with my Treo 700w for weeks and have discussed it on the MobileTechRoundup podcast. It is a very nice free service that makes it easy to publish photos taken with a mobile device right to the SplashBlog for sharing with friends and family. The eagle eyes at The Blog Herald noticed that the SplashBlog banner now indicates the service is a part of the Six Apart family. Six Apart is the company behind Movable Type and TypePad and it seems the acquisition is a perfect fit for their offerings. It will be interesting to see how SplashBlog might change going forward.

Houston Chronicle top blogging newspaper

Time to give a shout out to the hometown newspaper, The Houston Chronicle. A study by the NYU journalism department found the Chronicle to be the hands down best blogging newspaper. Heck, I could have told them that if they'd just asked. The Houston Chronicle has a host of blogs covering many different subjects and the paper's blogging effort is in no small part to the efforts of staff tech journalist, Dwight Silverman. Dwight has been at the paper for a long time and writes the top tech blog, TechBlog, which has been in my feedreader since it started. Kudos to the Chronicle for getting it.

Vote for OnTheRun at ITtoolbox

I have been blogging for ITtoolbox for a few months and the reception that OnTheRun has received has been just great. The folks at Ittoolbox have an excellent site for IT professionals (and others too) that has an astounding amount of information for the community. They recently announced the IT Community Choice Awards that is intended to recognize ITtoolbox blogs in the following categories:

• Best Blog: The community's favorite blog. $500 to winner.
• Best New Blog: The community's favorite new blog (launched in 2005). $150 to winner.
• Best Executive Blog: The community's favorite executive-themed blog. $150 to winner.
• Best Technical Blog: The community's favorite technical-themed blog. $150 to winner.
• Best Blog Entry: The community's favorite blog entry (published in 2005). $150 to winner.
• Ironman Award: The blog author who published the most entries in 2005. $150 to winner.

Nominations are accepted through Feb. 26th and voting on the nominated blogs and entries will commence immediately and run through March 6th, with winners announced March 8th. Head on over and check out the great blogs and entries on the ITtoolbox Blog section and nominate and vote for your favorites. That wasn't too obvious, was it?

Last post on the TUAW linking issue

I have received a lot of comments on the post I made yesterday that depicted what appeared to be a case of TUAW changing the source on one of their posts. The TUAW blogger who made that post has commented on this blog and in a personal email that their post was never changed, and the appearance that it was changed is due to an error on either Blogniscient or Technorati. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt so I am going to believe that they did not do what it appears they did. Interestingly, the founder of Blogniscient also left a comment and after verifying that what I blogged about seems accurate on the surface he could not rule out an error by either Blogniscient or Technorati. I am choosing to put this whole thing behind me and get back to blogging about mobile tech, which is the whole purpose of this blog. So, TUAW (and Jason Calacanis), I apologize if I jumped to conclusions but you must admit the possibility that Blogniscient or Technorati can create an error of perception such as this is very disturbing indeed.

When network blogs change history it cannot be a good thing

The big blog networks are businesses and as such it is in their best interest to spread google juice and link love among all the blogs on their network. This means that when they have a chance to link to an item of interest seen on numerous blogs they usually choose another blog on their own network. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, although the network runs the risk of becoming myopic in not linking to news sources outside the blog network, even if that's where they first saw the news. I can understand the reasoning behind network linking from a business standpoint but when a network blog changes history does it create a ripple effect through the blogosphere?

I uncovered something today that quite frankly is still leaving a bad smell in the blogosphere. This morning I was checking Technorati links to jkOnTheRun as I do everyday, just like countless other bloggers. It's one of the ways we see where our readers are coming from. One of the returned Technorati search results was this item:

The link "Apple Tablet on eBay" in heavy black above is this link to a story I posted yesterday, after Mr DeRuvo emailed me the information. The blog who linked to my story is The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on the Weblogs Inc. network. TUAW is a big blog so I was quite happy to see them link to my blog, although curiously I hadn't seen much traffic coming from their blog. So imagine my surprise when I click the Blogniscient link for the story and see this:

This lead me to the post on TUAW which has been totally edited to credit the source of the story to HackADay, another Weblogs Inc. blog. The link to my story, which is obviously where TUAW found the story to begin with, is gone. Now, HackADay didn't even run this story, TUAW is just sourcing an emailed tip to HackADay as the new source, but after they had originally posted my article as the source:

[thanks Joseph for emailing the hack a day tip line, posted here with Eliot's permission]

Bear in mind I am not doubting that Mr. DeRuvo also emailed the story to HackADay, that happens all the time. But for TUAW to edit their original post to remove the true source (which is still cached by Technorati) and change history, that just smells really bad to me. It seems that perhaps Jason Calacanis has driven Weblogs Inc. into an incestuous network of sources, and that can only be bad for the blogosphere he promotes so fiercely.

UPDATE:  I have been informed by TUAW that they did not change their original post to edit the source and I am giving them the benefit of the doubt.  There is one final post on this situation here.

Office Evolution now on ZDNet

Marc Orchant's new blog on ZDNet has now gone live and you want to make sure you bookmark this one. Marc promises to discuss the mobile office/ productivity space with his usual professionalism and insight. Marc is a great friend and I am excited to see him enter this new phase with his blogging. So what are you waiting for? Go get some Office Evolution! Psst. Here's his feed.

Don’t surf the web- egoSurf

If you have a blog you are no doubt trying to find out how prominently your posts show up in the major search engines. Now you can find out in one place as egoSurf will spin a search and return a relative egoSurf score so you can compare your results with others. It is fast and very cool. Here's how jkOnTheRun fared on all search engines egoSurf offers:

Happy birthday to two great Tablet PC blogs

Two of my favorite Tablet PC blogs had a Happy first Birthday in the last few days. The Student Tablet PC blog is a must stop for all students and really anyone who owns a Tablet PC. Life on the Wicked Stage Act 2 is another good source of Tablet PC information and news delivered in a style only Warner Crocker can pull off. Happy Birthday to both blogs! Wow, that year sure went by quickly. Cool (for Warner).

Add Skype to your TypePad with new deal announced

Skype has announced a deal with SixApart, makers of the TypePad blogging service, that let's bloggers integrate Skype with their blogs. This integration is now part of the new Skype beta, version 2.0:

Skype 2.0 also offers users the ability to show their availability and initiate Skype calls directly from a blog or personal Web site. Skype has partnered with Six Apart, to let users of its TypePad personal blogging service integrate Skype presence into their weblogs. Skype users, who use TypePad for their blogs, can indicate to visitors on their site when they are online, and allow visitors to easily initiate a Skype call right from the Web page. Similarly, hundreds of companies are integrating Skype's application into their own services to provide people with enhanced communications tools.

Along with the deal with SixApart Skype also announced deals with both Logitech and Creative which will result in Skype certified webcams. Skype version 2.0 offers video calls and the deal is intended to make webcams to be used with Skype plug and play for non-savvy users.

Naked Conversations- a first impression

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel have named their book on corporate blogging very aptly as Naked Conversations is appropriate on a number of levels.  The entire process the duo used while writing the book and posting the chapters on the book blog captured the very spirit of blogging and seems right for a book of this type.  Wiley, the publisher of Naked Conversations, was very nice to send me a galley of the book that will go on sale in January and since I have read the first few chapters I thought I would write up my first impressions of the book.  I will write a full review when I have finished the book but for now this initial impression will have to do.

Scoble and Israel give a brief history of corporate blogging in the beginning of the book with an emphasis on the blogging path that Microsoft took, with Scoble's insider view of the resistance from many of the company's senior executives.  The handful of executives that pushed for allowing employee blogging took a real career risk that has paid off many-fold for Microsoft.  The book goes on to lay out case history after case history to show how different companies have followed Microsoft's path to use employee blogs to put a personal face in front of the consuming public.

I am really caught up reading Naked Conversations- Robert and Shel have written a very easy to read book in a totally conversational style that makes the reader feel they are sitting down and having a conversation with the authors.  This definitely gives the book a "bloggy" feel to it and is no doubt intentional and very appropriate.  The book flows very naturally and feels right to me, and is very well done in this regard.  So far there is only one complaint I have about the book and this is probably the publisher's fault.  The page numbers in the galley I have start over at page one at each chapter, which is a pet peeve of mine.  It is impossible to get a feel for where you are in the overall book as most chapters are pretty short so page numbers are recycling every few pages.  I think this is a big mistake on the publisher's part and I hope the final copy of the book drops this lousy page numbering scheme.

Get a free ebook from Scott Adams

Scott Adams is one of my favorite funny men, between the Dilbert comic strip and books and the other funny stuff he has published. I am such a fan of his humorous writings that my kids have always known that they don't have to do a lot of shopping for birthday and Christmas gifts for me. They just pick up the latest Dilbert paraphernalia that is in the stores and I will be happy, a fact made plain by a tour around my study. From the Dilbert M&M; dispenser to the row of Scott Adams books on my shelf you can guess how big a fan I am.

Scott is now blogging and has quickly become one of my very favorite blogs as every day he lends his distinct style of humor to events that would otherwise be rather dull and boring. Today I see through his blog that he is giving away one of his books in ebook format, God's Debris. Why is he doing this?

It's free because it's designed to be discussed with people who have also read it. I'm confident that some percentage of the free e-book readers will be inspired to buy a physical book for friends or for their own collection. And if you like it, you might want to try the sequel, The Religion War, available only in hardcover. At the end of the e-book you'll find some links to Amazon.com for your impulse-buying pleasure.

I've got my copy, and at a price I can easily live with.

TypePad is all right by me

It has been pretty well reported about TypePad's recent performance problems due to a move to a new data center. I was impacted pretty heavily for a few days with my blog inaccessible for random periods and experienced very sluggish performance when I could get in. I understand Six Apart's need to move to a new data center and that I will be served better in the future so I did not file any trouble tickets or complaints, as I felt things would return back to normal as soon as possible. Imagine my surprise when I received an email today from Six Apart's CEO, Barak Berkowitz, detailing the changes they've made to improve the infrastructure of the network. His email went on to state that their performance was not acceptable and that all TypePad customers are being given a credit for time lost. Take a look at this and it is easy to see why Six Apart understands customer service:

By default, you will receive a credit for 15 free days of TypePad service. To get this credit you don't have to do anything; we will just credit your account.

That said, we recognize that customers have had different experiences with the service, so we want to give you the opportunity to choose more, or even less compensation. If you click the link below, you'll get a screen that offers you the following choices:

• While the performance issues caused me some inconvenience I mainly found the service acceptable last month- Give me 15 free days of TypePad.
• The performance issues made it very difficult for me to use the service on multiple occasions during the month- Give me 30 free days of TypePad.
• The performance issues affected me greatly, making my experience unacceptable for most of the month- Give me 45 free days of TypePad.
• I really wasn't affected and feel I got the great service I paid for last month- Thank you for the offer, but please don't credit my account.

This company gets customer service, and that's why I have always been extremely happy with the TypePad service. Kudos to you, Six Apart. Your outstanding support for the customer is why I am always happy to recommend your service to friends and acquaintances who wish to start a blog.

jkOnTheRun review- RocketPost blog editor

A good blog editor is one of the most useful tools a blogger can use if it is a good one.  The ability to create blog posts offline is a good thing but if the offline editor has some additional utility integrated then the experience is awesome.  I have used BlogJet for a long time and even wrote about it here on jkOnTheRun.  A few weeks ago the developer for a new blog editor, RocketPost, contacted me and asked me to give the program a fair shake, and this review is the result.

Blog Central

RocketPost has two main parts- the main blog window and the post editor.  The main window provides a listing of all posts on your blog, and this list can be refreshed manually at any time.  A handy preview window shows you any post you click on in the upper window, and a simple double-click on any post opens up the editor.  You can make changes to any post in the editor and republish a post with just a click of the mouse.

Setting a blog up in RocketPost is very straightforward and once done you are given the option to download existing blog posts into the program.  You have complete control over how far back you want to go to grab existing posts.  You can also use RocketPost to handle multiple blogs, even if you have different blog engines.  This makes RocketPost a "Blog Central" for all your blogs which is a real convenience.  RocketPost works with all major blog engines.

Editor

The editor is where RocketPost really shines.  It is invoked by clicking on the NEW button in the main window and once the editor opens you can see all the functionality that RocketPost offers the blog author.  In addition to all the standard editing buttons on the toolbar (bold, italics, underline, etc.) there are some really cool function buttons too.  There are buttons for Quote indent and outdent, numbered list, bullet list, font color, justification, horizontal line, hyperlink, web service tag, insert picture, insert table, drop cap, and right and left pull quotes.  The editor also provides easy category control and publishing options.  The WYSIWYG editor is very easy to use and has some advanced features I haven't seen in other editors.  One of the most useful innovations in RocketPost is in inserting hyperlinks.  Copy the hyperlink you want to assign to text and hit the hyperlink button and the copied link is automatically inserted in the hyperlink field in the dialog box.  This means you can assign a hyperlink with just two taps.  Nice.

Working with pictures

Inserting pictures into posts is as simple as clicking the appropriate button and selecting the picture on your computer.  The picture will appear wherever the cursor is in the blog post and aligned however you select in the drop down box in the insert dialog box.  You can align the picture left, right and baseline, along with several other alignments giving you complete control over the appearance of the picture in the post.  RocketPost does automatic thumbnails for your picture insertion- insert the picture and click on it to select it in the post.  Once you select THUMBNAIL from the tools menu the selected picture is resized to a thumbnail that will show a full-sized picture when the reader clicks it on the blog.  It would be simpler if the thumbnail control was in the Insert Picture dialog box, something the developer says they are considering for a future update.

RocketPost has a unique and useful "photo album" feature that some bloggers might find to be cool.  Drag any picture into the editor and RocketPost automatically inserts a thumbnail.  No buttons, no dialog boxes.

Developer response

RocketPost is a new program and support is always important for such apps.  I am happy to report the developer has been very responsive to my concerns with the first version and the current version has some features included that I requested.  There are several authors contributing posts to jkOnTheRun and at my request the developer added support for this so I can see posts that others make to the blog.  I also requested the thumbnail capability that is also now in the current version. 

The scoop

Anconia RocketPost will set you back $149, a price I am sure will come down substantially if the developer wants to make very many sales.  There is a trial version available on Anconia's web site.  I have been very happy with RocketPost (other than the price) and use it for all the posts on jkOnTheRun.

 

 

Google stop the blogspam!

Chris Pirillo is trying to get something done about the epidemic blog spam that has grown over the past few months to epic proportions.  Most of the spam sites that have been set up for the sole purpose of spamming both legitimate blogs and to scam Google with Adsense and Adsords keywords are blogspot.com blogs.  This is ironic as Chris points out because they are designed to scam Google out of ad revenue for content that is either gibberish or in some cases the full republishing of legitimate copyrighted materials of others.  The irony?  Google owns Blogger which is responsible for the lion's share of the spamming.  He has published a public fist-shaking cry for Google to fix this, and they have responded already that they will.  Here's hoping they can do this effectively.  My RSS reader routinely returns 400 - 500 garbage feeds per day and it's getting worse.  Come on Google, get this under control!

Verisign buys Weblogs.com

Dave Winer and Verisign have confirmed that Verisign has purchased Dave’s Weblogs.com for a few million dollars.  Dave says that it’s a good deal as Verisign has the traffic handling capacity that Weblogs desperately needs and it’s good to see him get something out of all the hard work he’s put into this blogging and podcasting thing.  This week seems to be the week of the blog sale so if anyone has a few million to drop on jkOnTheRun I’m willing to talk. 

AOL to buy Weblogs Inc.

PaidContent.org is reporting that Weblogs Inc. (WIN), the blogging network founded by Jason Calacanis and Brian Alvey, is being bought out by AOL.  I’m not sure what AOL would want with WIN but they are reportedly paying $20 – 35 million dollars for the network of blogs.  PaidContent.org claims this information comes from multiple sources and is a done deal which should be announced this week.  Looks like Jason has the magic formula to sell companies every couple of years or so.  Calacanis refused to comment on the deal when approached at the We Media conference today but was carrying an AOL tote bag.

mob5- create and maintain mobile pages from your mobile device

A jkOnTheRun reader, Nick Hatcher, sent me this tip.  Mob5 is a webpage creation tool and host that provides tools for creating mobile homepages complete with images, links and anything else you want to put there.  The cool part is the Mobile Editing Tool which allows the user to create mob5 pages directly from a mobile phone.  So you not only get a personal site that is formatted for mobile device screens but you can create it and edit it there, too.  You can also take a photo with your phone and put it directly on your web page.  Cool mobile tech.

TypePad now supports Podcasting

TypePad bloggers who have been itching to get into Podcasting but didn’t want to get into a complicated distribution setting can now distribute them directly in TypePad.  This added feature is part of a slew of functionality recently added including Notes TypeLists and XML feed handling.  Way to keep improving, Six Apart! 

The evil RSS conspiracy

Everyone is up in arms about Microsoft's attempt to call RSS feeds "web feeds".  Purists and RSS originators are understandably upset over the audacity and arrogance of the Redmond giant and are bemoaning the fact that MS is trying to control the term.  While I don't really care what we call the feeds I'll tell you a true story that happened to me recently.

A couple of months ago, before the whole RSS naming brouhaha, my wife and her friend told me they wanted to start a podcast. Both of them are fairly computer literate so I thought it would be easy to explain to them how podcasts are distributed via RSS.  Let me tell you, every time I said the phrase "RSS" I swear their eyes glazed over and they just didn't get it no matter how hard I tried to describe it. 

In desperation I finally told them that RSS feeds were just web feeds and the light went on in their eyes and they understood that immediately.  They both told me, almost in unison, "why didn't you tell us that first?"  That simple term made sense to them and I for one am glad that someone is trying to simplify and promote a term that is easy for anyone to understand.  Too bad it was Microsoft since many have a knee-jerk reaction to anything they do.

Fatal flaw in the new Feedster 500

Jason Calacanis was right in claiming that there is no good method for accurately representing blog popularity or influence.  He called the blog search sites to the carpet and offered $50,000 in advertising on the Weblogs Inc Network (WIN) for the first search site to come up with a scheme that is better than the current inaccurate system employed by Technorati.  Feedster shot to the front and have published their admittedly preliminary Feedster 500 list that is based on the count of links to the blog in question.  It’s not a bad list but while really looking at the blogs on this list one fact jumped out at me.  Blogs that belong to a network are driven up the list because other blogs in the network cross-link like crazy.  You can see this on Weblogs Inc. blogs all the time as they are frequently running “best of WIN” posts across the board that link to other blogs on the network, groups of them at a time.  These links are apparently counted by Feedster making these blogs appear to have many more links than it would show if they didn’t do this cross-linking.

I do two podcasts for The Podcast Network which also has a network of blogs, one for each show, and it surprisingly shows up high in the Feedster 500 list.  While it makes me quite happy to see it appear on the list am pretty sure it is because all the different network blogs have multiple links back to the main one.  It’s the same phenomenon we see with the WIN blogs and even some of the Gawker ones.

I am not saying these blogs in the top 500 list should not be there, I am just pointing out the methodology is highly flawed.  Feedster should not count links to any blog from other blogs on the same domain if they want to prevent inter-network cross-linking from driving the number of links to any given blog inaccurately high.  This is the same principle that spammers are using to skew Technorati.  I would love to hear what others think about this issue.

Test post using BlogJet

I am testing the BlogJet program for creating blog posts offline for upload at a later time. BlogJet looks really nice since it works with just about every blogging service out there (TypePad included) and most importantly lets me include graphic smileys!    I have used the program in the past but got away from it due to some early incompatibility problems with my particular setup but I think this current version (1.5) will work OK.  I also like the integrated spell check which is a big plus for me.  The latest TypePad upgrade broke the Google Toolbar spell check option in the TypePad rich text editor so this will let me edit in WYSIWYG and still spell check.  Check out the attached voice note that BlogJet makes very easy to do.  Not something I’m likely to use every day but it’s pretty cool. 

Listen to Voice attachment

Marc Orchant to edit Scoble / Israel book!

Good friend Marc Orchant has just announced he will be editing the upcoming book from Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.  The book project has generated a lot of interest since the authors have been blogging the entire book project on The Red Couch blog.  Marc will be an excellent editor for this effort and I congratulate him and the authors on a great choice to insure the best book possible.  Way to go, Marc!

Companies DO listen to blogs

Blogs are great vehicles for reviewing and discussing products so that readers can adopt or avoid those products, hopefully based on multiple opinions.  This removes a lot of the risk for making purchases and as a result the consumer is better informed, as long as he/she realizes that each blog just reflects one opinion.  There have been lots of articles floating around pointing out how companies are beginning to realize the power of blogs to reach customers.  Companies have been springing up to help other companies start blogs and many companies now sanction or encourage high level employees to start blogging.

Companies are starting to listen to customer's blogs too which is a very good thing.  In the past three weeks two different major companies have emailed me about posts on this blog that detailed problems I had with their products.  One a very major software maker and one a very major hardware maker.  Both of the blog posts under discussion were written over five months ago and have just now been discovered by the two companies.  This tells me they are not only paying attention to blogs but going back over older material on them to see if they are mentioned.  Sure they can use advanced searches to do this but the important point here is they are doing it.  This can only have a positive affect on their customers and future products.  And that is a very good thing.  I will elaborate on these two particular companies when a resolution is achieved.  For better or for worse.

EFF will not defend Think Secret against Apple suit

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is defending two sites (AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org) that Apple is trying to subpoena to reveal sources for rumor information they published, but has announced they will not defend the rumor site Think Secret.  The EFF stated they are not defending the 19 year old Harvard student Nicholas Ciarelli and his web site because he has been actually sued by Apple.  It seems to me that if anyone needs help from the EFF it is this kid who is simply being sued to coerce him to reveal the sources for leaked information.  This law suit will be very important in deciding if bloggers are protected by the First Amendment like mainstream journalists and I can't help but think that the EFF is missing their calling in choosing not to defend Think Secret.

"In addition to being subpoenaed for sources, he's being directly sued for trade secret misappropriation," said Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney with the organization. "We're trying to find him counsel."

(via The Houston Chronicle)

Another fired blogger

Friend and fellow blogger Jeremy Wright was fired this week for blogging about stuff that happened at work.  I won't go into the details here, if you are interested you can get them from his web site or read an article in InformationWeek that covers it (Jeremy's kind of famous- he's the guy who sold his blog and then auctioned his blogging skills on eBay).  If it isn't plainly obvious by now if you work for a company and you blog about it you run a real risk of being fired for it.  It doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, if you get fired for it you are still fired.  Before you post about something funny/horrible/stupid that happened at work today think about the ramifications.  Your blog is a public forum and is no different than if you appeared on the local news and told the same story you are writing about.  Ask yourself if you would tell that story on the news.  Don't work and blog.

The blogger as publisher

jkOnTheRun is a tech blog so I try to avoid a lot of discussion about blogging since so many (millions?) other sites do enough of that but a recent event is serious enough that I want to give a warning to all bloggers and web site owners and the readers who post comments on them.  Apple has generated a lot of negative press in the last few days with the lawsuit they have filed against Mac enthusiast site Think Secret.  Think Secret posted rumor information on their site over the past few weeks that detailed some announcements that Apple was to make about future products at the upcoming MacWorld Expo.  Apple's suit is an attempt to get Think Secret to identify who leaked the information to the web site and this has generated a lot of discussion all over the blogosphere about First Amendment rights and how they apply to the bully tactics of Apple.

This suit by Apple has the potential to shut down the blogoshpere.  If that sounds too knee-jerk or simplistic then perhaps we should be discussing this loud and clear from all corners of the blogosphere.  We all know how sacrosanct free speech rights for journalists are treated in the US as they should be.  Journalists have confidential sources and it would have a very chilling effect if big companies could sue over a published article and prevent free discussion.  Make no mistake about it this is exactly what is happening with the Apple case.  Apple has stepped up and broken the cherry for bloggers and enthusiast sites with this law suit and it could potentially shut down a lot of these types of sites.  Why?

First of all it is important to call bloggers for what they are and that is journalists.  Whether a particular blogger is a good journalist or not might be up for debate but if they are posting news articles then they are journalists in every sense of the word.  Even tabloid journalists are true journalists, even if some would argue that point.  So if bloggers are journalists and they are automatically protected by the First Amendment how can Apple attempt to get the Think Secret owners to divulge the source of the leaked information?  To understand that we should clearly understand what Apple is trying to do with this lawsuit.  They are not after monetary gain for damages incurred by this leaked information, Think Secret doesn't have any to give up and Apple doesn't need it.  No, they are simply trying to coerce the site to name the Apple insiders who provided the information.  It is the exact same thing when companies sue a reporter to force them to name whistle blowers for an article the company doesn't like.  And yes, this is First Amendment stuff that should prevail.

The problem (and potential to cripple the blogosphere) lies in the reality of how First Amendment issues are resolved in the US.  Journalists work for big publishers (for the most part) who have legal departments and big bucks to help defend their staff journalists when these types of suits arise.  They are almost always successful in their defense in these cases but it requires the expertise and funds to do so.  Bloggers do not have either of those assets in a fight such as this.  Confronted with a similar situation they will take down the offending article, name their sources, and continue on (or shut down completely).  If they refuse to do so then the Apples of the corporate world will go after their web host.  Think about that for a moment and the ripple effect that can have on many, many blogs and web sites.  The exposure comes not just from articles with rumors in them but will eventually extend to comments posted by site visitors.  The potential liability comes not just from articles on the site but any material that appears on the blog, even comments.  Now you begin to see why the outcome of this Apple suit is so important and even scary.

The exposure for bloggers stems from the fact that bloggers are not just journalists but also the publisher.  Bloggers own their sites for the most part and that is why the First Amendment issue will not be quickly resolved in the Apple case.  Most suits like this are filed against the journalist and the big publisher steps in for the defense to protect the rest of the publication from potential future problems.  You the blogger are your own publisher so who is going to defend you?  Unfortunately the reality in these types of cases is that justice is not automatic, no matter how much we'd like to think so.  I hope we see a tremendous amount of discussion about this Think Secret problem.  It could one day be our own problem.

Podcasting, PiMcasting and now Speechcasting

You can hardly turn around on the Internet these days without bumping into a Podcast or even a PiMcast.  Something about pulling content when it is convenient for you and then being able to listen to that content when you want (and often while doing something else) has appealed to thousands of people.  The folks at Nullstream thought pulling text blogs from RSS feeds and having software read them aloud was the next obvious step and call it "Speechcasting".  They have an article that contains full details and describes the software you need to do this with your Pocket PC on their site.

Happy blogday, Robert Scoble!

Robert Scoble has been blogging for four years today so join me in wishing him a very Happy Blogday!  You can all sing "for he's a jolly good fellow" now.  Congrats, Robert!

The Alpha Bloggers

MSNBC has an article about the "Alpha Bloggers" and the impact they have on not just blogging but on mainstream events.  The A-listers discussed in the article are all well known to anyone who has been involved in blogging and the author looks at how they have become blogging heavyweights.  You will find such names as Dave Winer, Doc Searles, Robert Scoble, and Adam Curry mentioned in the article.  The author points out (not surprisingly to me) that these A list guys spend a lot of time blogging about blogging, and they link to each other a lot.  That's what helps make them big shots.  If you have any interest in blogging then the article is worth a read.  Who knows, maybe these guys will all see this mention in their "vanity feeds", otherwise known as ego-surfing, and if they all link back to me then I can be an Alpha Blogger too.  :)

The business of blogging according to Business Week

I normally do not write about pure blogging as there are dozens hundreds thousands of blogs writing about it.  But there are a lot of bloggers who are currently trying to figure out how to make a living from blogging and I felt like commenting about it.  A lot of buzz is floating around now about several big name bloggers who are writing books about... blogging.  All of this is good as blogging is definitely big news and there is no doubt it has moved closer toward the mainstream than some would like.  Business Week has an interesting article about the business of blogging and how enterprising bloggers are trying to cash in on the phenomenon.  They discuss the current kingpins of blogging, Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton, and even get into the controversial blog for pay scheme that Marqui is running now.  Anyone interested in the business of blogging should give it a read.  I am surprised they didn't mention fellow blogger Jeremy Wright's recent auction on eBay where he auctioned three months of his blogging.  It was quite successful and he has my congratulations.

Microsoft's blogging service going live

Microsoft's blogging service, MSN Spaces, is going live as we speak.  Jeremy Wright has a nice article about it including some links to MS participants who have set up really cool blogs on the service.  I think Jeremy is right- this is going to be very big.

Here's one of the MSN Spaces blog links.  Hmm, looks a little like Wallop.

Backdoor advertising- paying to get stories Slashdotted

Slashdot has evolved into such an influential web site that it has spawned a verb- slashdotted.  When someone publishes an article on their web site and it gets posted to the front page of Slashdot it can generate tens of thousands of visitors in just a few days, something that most web sites would kill for.  That's called being slashdotted and I know it generates tons of traffic, it's happened to jkOnTheRun.

Jeremy Wright has been a successful blogger as long as anyone and he has parlayed that into "real" work writing tech stories for other sites.  It seems that the web site he writes for commercially has run into some stiff competition and he has come up with a novel way to try and counter it.  Jeremy's article is an ad for a "Slashdot wizard" who will be paid to get their stories slashdotted.  Here's the request from his blog:

I work for a news site. A news site which will be negatively affected by a recent Google News announcement. A news site which needs to keep it’s traffic up.

So, we are looking for someone to specifically do just that, by getting stories approved at Slashdot. Do whatever it takes, nothing against the rules. Basically, every story you get approved is 50$ for you.

Sounds kind of like buying votes to me.

Blogging as effective journalism

Journalism students at the University of Florida are learning first hand the effectiveness of blogging as a tool for reporting the news. The nine reporters-to-be are covering the election using Cingular camera phones and blogging the election in both text and photos. The students are seeing for themselves how effective it can be to cover an event without the trappings of mainstream journalists. The interesting comments deal with the fact that inserting full camera crews with lighting, etc., can "change" the event itself because the people being covered react to the media. On the other hand blogging with a simple camera phone allows the event to proceed as it normally would. The assumption could be made that the coverage of events like this would be more accurate this way. The student's moblog can be viewed at their web site. It will be interesting to see what happens when real mainstream media starts covering happenings via blogging. That will lead to a question- is it still blogging if journalists do it? Or is blogging an amateur only pastime by definition.

(Cingular press release via Yahoo news)