Thusgaard.com 2009

Here a quick list of installed worthwhile apps which I need to reinstall upon E7¹reinstall:

– shozu (social networks): http://www.shozu.com
– gravity (twitter): http://mobileways.de/products/gravity/gravity/
– google maps: http://m.google.com
– nokia sportstracker: http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/main/download.do
– nimbuzz (im): http://nimbuzz.com/
– mail for exchange: http://www.businesssoftware.nokia.com/mail_for_exchange_downloads.php
– totalrecall: http://www.killermobile.com/newsite/content/view/40/82/
– sms preview: http://get.smspreview.mobi
– flixwagon: http://www.flixwagon.com/
– qik
– Enterprise One (Seven) theme for E71
– mobbler
– coreplayer
– google translator
– wordmobi + python
– screenshot
– accuweather
– google app: http://m.google.com
– pathe cinemas

In addition:
– update share online

Maybe:
– Youtube app
– Nokia maps

In the series on Best Tweeting Experiences for Nokia E71 we’ve been having a look at Gravity from Mobileways.de so far. Gravity seems by many to be the king of twittering on S60-based mobile devices including the Nokia E71.

As in all stories involving a king you usually also have someone out to get the king’s crown and the kingdom of S60-Twitterers. In our story, the most likely contender at the moment among paid Twitter clients seems to be Twittix from Viking Informatics, sold and marketed by Mojosmobile.com.

Now, Twittix is a native S60 client for Twitter. It costs about €5 and brings you all the things you’d expect from one of the top two applications in the market: timeline, tweeting, replying, direct messages, My Tweets, people you follow, followers, etc. In my last post on this topic I said that Gravity has set the bar, so naturally we will be comparing Twittix to Gravity. In the following I will focus less on what these two great applications have in common and a lot on what makes them different from eachother.

Twittix packs a few features that Gravity doesn’t which changes the user experience a bit. You can forward tweets via sms, which means that you can share interesting tweets or just your own tweets with anyone with a mobile phone – you’re no longer bound by who’s on Twitter. Personally I’m a big fan of breaking down barriers like that so this is a definite plus for Twittix and something Mobileways should seriously consider implementing in Gravity.

With Gravity you can see how many followers and how many following a profile has. Twittix takes it further and lets you view profile and even browse who is followed and who is following. Smart feature which makes Twittix a stronger tool for finding new connections.

In addition you can pick any profile and introduce that person to anyone currently following you. This too is a plus point for Twittix.

Twittix has other features which Gravity is missing, but the above features are the ones that in my mind makes Twittix more than just a “wannabe Gravity”.

Twittix is missing some features too, though.

One major missing feature is the ability to create and store multiple Twitter searches. That feature makes it possible for you to not just use Twitter as a social engine, but also as a knowledge engine. Twittix is missing literally endless searches and Twitter trends – two features which are much more about what is going on than who it is going on with. Twittix does have one search and more on this front is coming in version 1.01, but at this point it’s just not enough for content focused users.

Essentially this is what it’s going to come down to for many users: What kind of Twitter user am I? Am I a user-focused Twitterer or am I a content focused Twitterer. Many user focused and social twitterers will choose Twittix for its ability to stay in touch with people and connect people to other people – including connecting themselves to all of those people. Content focused users should stick to Gravity for its access to a wealth of information about things that interest you regardless of who it’s coming from. If I were to come up with a tagline for Twittix it would be “The Social Twitter client”.

With both clients it’s a bit of a give and take and both are excellent software products. You have to make up your own mind, but for me the graphics of Gravity, the many searches you can make along with the ability you do have to stay up to date with people still makes Gravity my Twitter tool of choice – even at €5 more than Twittix. The look and feel of Twittix is not polished enough for me – very subjective, I know, but that’s my opinion.

All that said, it looks like Twittix is carving a niche for itself and judging from some of the activity in the blogosphere the kingdom might not be entirely safe for Gravity just yet.

Have a look at the feature by feature comparison on this Google Doc.

Packing my E71 for a series of tests of various applications for the E71. This time I’m taking a look at the best applications for twittering with focus on what works on E71, which in turn will work on most other S60-based handsets as well. Each Part will hold a rather in-depth test of each application hence why I’m just putting a single test in each post.

Intro

Brief on Twitter according to Wikipedia:

“Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).”

So far so good. Same as with many other internet related services also Twitter works really well on Symbian S60 in general and especially well on Nokia E71. To create a bit of an overview I’ve grouped the choices into three categories: Paid for installed clients, Free installed clients, Browser-based clients (all free).

Paid, installed clients: Gravity

Gravity is the leader of the moment (see image), providing:

• Timeline
• Replies
• Direct Messages
• My Tweets
• Favourite tweets
• Friends (people you follow)
• Followers
• Browsing of User Tweets, User & Replies, Search
• Nearly endless Twitter searches
• Twitter top trends
• Picture tweeting with Twitpic and Mobypicture
• Full-screen mode
• - and those are just the Twitter specific features.

For the rest Gravity holds settings for the profile, timeline updates, replies updates, messages updates, and auto-update settings. In case you loose your phone your account and password seems secure as the password is represented by asterisks. In-application update feature makes sure you have the most recent version at all times – if you want to. You can add several additional Twitter and Laconica accounts.

Finally and probably most impressive of all the graphical design and touch and feel of Gravity is unparalelled on the S60 platform and rivals the best of other platforms. Oh, and in case you were wondering I actually coughed up the 10-or-so Euro for the application. It rules supreme and has set the bar for what Twitter applications should be able to do on the E71 and S60.

It comes with a full-blown trial to test the whole thing for what I remember to be 10 days, which should be more than enough to get a good idea of what you’d be paying for – just the way I like it.

Gravity can be picked up through the vendor’s website at http://mobileways.de. The author is to be found on Twitter (of course)

Have a look at the feature by feature overview on this Google Doc.

Congratulations. You’re probably sitting with your Nokia E71 in your hands right now – or you have a different Symbian S60-based telephone, in which case this post will have relevance for you too. This post will for starters cover the applications I have and use with great pleasure on my own Nokia E71 – comments and additions, however, are very welcome!

At the very bottom I have a few requests for applications I’m looking for as well!

So let’s get started!!

Communication:
Email: E71 comes standard with an e-mail client which also includes Nokia’s own mail for exchange. No need for special apps here – the E71 does a fine job as it is already.
UPDATE (13/4/2009): w0nk0 alerted me earlier today to an alternative app for HTML-addicts. The app is ProfiMail from “Lonely Cat games”. I’ve just run a brief test of ProfiMail and see both pros and cons of the application. The main pro seems to be its ability to support HTML email – something that Nokia aficionados have long asked Nokia to do something about. In addition it supports pushmail, but Nokia has similar services with Nokia Messaging for consumers and Mail for Exchange for the business users. And now for some of the cons: Profimail holds many features and offers great flexibility. My experience as a first-time user was that ProfiMail fails to deliver simplified organisation of information. In fact when I didn’t manage to create a connection to my POP3 server via either a wireless LAN or my 3G connection, I uninstalled the application. Good news is they let you try the application before you buy – maybe my experience had more to do with me than with the Lonely Cat. Get ProfiMail here: http://www.lonelycatgames.com/?app=profimail.

Chat: Nokia loads the E71 with a software called “IM”. I assume it’s supposed to be some sort of instant messaging application. For most people this will not do, and so alternatives are required, such as:

• Nimbuzz (preferred): An excellent chat application that allows communication with contacts on the following networks: Windows Live, Skype, Yahoo!, Facebook, Google Talk, Orkut, AIM, MobileMe, MySpace, ICQ, Twitter (updates), Gadu-gadu, Hyves (Dutch social network), Giovani, Jabber, studiVZ/meinVZ, and schülerVZ. Nimbuzz also allows you to use a bunch of SIP services, and configure your own in case you preferred SIP service isn’t listed. Outbound calls can be done with SIP, SkypeOut or your normal mobile service provider, giving you international calls from your mobile for nearly nothing. Nimbuzz was recently upgraded to version 2.0 and can be found at http://www.nimbuzz.com

Other applications in this category include: Fring (interesting alternative to Nimbuzz), Windows Live, Skype, and Palringo. Like Nimbuzz and Fring, Palringo combines several services in one application. It falls short, though, with no SIP and only Windows Live, YIM, AIM, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, Jabber, Google Talk, Facebook (Alpha), and iChat. Palringo also has a location based service, which I’m not all too sure what to do with…

SMS: Various applications exist to tweak your sms experience. If you must then check Nokia Conversation for threaded sms. Get it here.

• My preference for sms is  a small application from Norwegian Mobile Nordic called SMS Preview. It gives you a 30-60 second preview of any sms as it arrives without the need to press any buttons. Get it for your mobile phone here: http://get.smspreview.mobi.

Call Recording: Yes, you might want to do this now and then for a variety of reasons. In any case there are several applications for this as well. My preference is:

• TotallRecall from KillerMobile software: allowing silent recording either hot-button activated or automatic of any mobile conversation. This application is free to test, and will cost you $13,50 to buy. Get it here.

Web 2.0:

• Blogging: Wordmobi is a Wordpress blogging application, which fulfills the most basic needs of the mobile blogger. The most current version 0.7.0 was released in early April 2009. Get the application here. Wordmobi requires installation of Python, which can be found here.
• Twitter: A lot of discussion on this topic was put to rest recently when Mobileways.de released the impressive Gravity client for twitter. Mobileways provides a free trial of their roughly €10 application. It is by far the sleekest Twitter client for Symbian to date and well worth the €10 pricetag. Find it here: http://mobileways.de/products/gravity/gravity/.
• Web 2.0 publishing: CellSpin is a free and easy to use mobile blogging app that lets you blog photos, audio, video, and text to Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Picasa, YouTube, Live Journal, MySpace, and more! This very powerful application is like a publishing house on your phone. Publish literally any kind of content from anywhere at any time. Get the application here: http://www.cellspin.net. Alternatives include Shozu, which disappointed in several ways…

GPS and Location-based applications: One of the best things about the Nokia E71 is how the makers managed to put an internal GPS into such a sleek design. Having a GPS opens for location-based services and applications such as maps, navigation, searching for friends’ locations etc. The best application on my E71 are:

• Nokia Sports Tracker: Ideal for walkers, joggers, runners, cyclists of any kind, in short anyone who does distance based sports outside. The GPS will help you track speed, distance, pace, and averages of those + calories burned, put it all in nice graphs, give you a map of where you are/have been training AND share that near-live with anyone who you want to watch where, how fast and how far you’ve trained. Download here: http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/main/download.do
• Google Maps with Google Latitude: This two in one application evolved from the original Google Maps application which in itself is pretty good. Google Maps lets you see where you are and search for points of interest anywhere. With Latitude, however, Google Maps becomes an entirely different application. Latitude lets your contacts know where you are on a Google Map – or were you were the last time you updated it. Very interesting start of location-based-services from always interesting Google!! Download here: http://m.google.com/maps.
• Alternatively you can use Nokia Friend View, which does more or less the same thing and can be downloaded here. During non-scientific testing Nokia Friend View did seem to load maps much slower than Google Maps. In addition one could imagine many Nokia users going to Nokia Friend View, while many users of anything will use Google Maps. Lost that battle Nokia – on to the next.
  

Media Playing:

Now we’re going to have a closer look at which special applications you might want to get for playing media on your E71. The E71 is an OK media player when you have little other options and you can actually enjoy a movie if you have a pair of headphones with you and some time to kill:

• CorePlayer Mobile: Plays this interesting range of video formats: H.264 (AVC), AVCHD, MKV, MPEG-1, MPEG-4 part 2 (ASP), DivX, XviD, WMV*, Theora*, Dirac*, MJPEG, MSVIDEO1. That’s just such an impressive list and I haven’t found comparable applications anywhere. Download it here!!
• YouTube: Now there are some things that CorePlayer Mobile is just OK at. One of those things is Youtube. So the guys at Youtube have developed their own app – the YouTube app. It does a decent job at viewing YouTube videos over any type of internet connection. Only things missing is an overview of your own account and an upload feature. Get the YouTube app here: http://m.google.com/youtube.
• Internet Radio: In one of the most recent firmware updates to firmware 200.x.x.x Nokia included the “internet radio” application in the update. You can tune in to any station in the overview via the internet connection on your phone. Make sure to make a backup of your data before you upgrade to newer firmware.

Various applications:

• Google Translator: Excellent translation tool for your S60-based Nokia. Attempts to determine which language you’re translating from and just allows you to select your target language. Works pretty well and is downloadable here.
• Google Docs: The well-known Google Docs application now with editable documents also on Nokia S60 phones. Find it at http://m.google.com/docs.

The most interesting single application developer seems to be either Nokia or Google. Find all Google applications for S60-based Nokias at http://www.google.com/mobile/nokia_smart/

I am looking for:

• Good Facebook application
• Solid GPS Navigation application
• Comments and additional insight on all of the above applications and application categories.

As I recently purchased and downloaded my first audiobook from Audible.com, Jeff Jarvis‘ “What Woould Google Do?”. At that point in time I promised to add a few comments on the book, and Jeff was kind enough to wish me a good time with his book and add a few insightful comments on writing versus reading books.

Well, Jeff, it was not bad – not bad at all!

The “What Would Google Do?” (”WWGD”) audiobook is a 9 hours unabridged version of the usual old-tech versions. As previously mentioned it comes with some of the benefits and drawbacks of  audiobooks. While it from a technology point of view is much better than another recent consumption – the audiobook version of Patrick Lencioni’s “Five Dysfunctions of a Team” (3,7 hours with no chapters) – it still has a long way to go to create the right kind of experience for audiobook consumers.

With two sound files of 7 chapters each, all of those chapters entitled Chapter 1, 2, 3 through to 7 there is little possibility to navigate the audiobook (making this blog post much more work). That is where audiobooks can most easily win the most ground. Not this time. Maybe in the future.

As for the content of WWGD, Jeff has put together an interesting account of how we got this far. How did the Internet change the game, how has that impacted the old-style, atom-bound, based on making stuff companies, and what does everyone need to do to survive and thrive in the new, transparent, distributed, free economy. And that’s all good and well.

But not great!

Jeff claims that WWGD is “one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual”. Jeff, that’s not entirely accurate, is it!? The thought experiment is limited to reflections and ideas that are not new. The prophecy is not new either – Jeff just chimes in with the other internet gurus.

And while his observations seem accurate and his suggestions seem interesting, I can’t really get rid af the feeling that Jeff could have done better – gone deeper – spend more time analyzing. And I start thinking about why he wrote this book and the way he wrote it. I read his own words on his own hypocrisy again and conclude that Jeff solely made this book to make money – and not so much because he has a message that needs to go out.

Jeff, you mention tbat the way forward is the free economy – if done right. So, why didn’t you try to get it right? Why not just give the book away – free of charge, and earn money on the side-effects? Is it because you somehow don’t believe in your own content – or is because you don’t believe in free?

I’ll not go into further detail than that it’s a pity you didn’t. I – for one – would have had a lot more respect for you and for “WWGD” if you’d eaten your own dog food. Not eating your own dog food always raises concerns with your potential customers, since what you’re essentially saying is: “It’s good enough for you, but not good enough for me”.

And that’s how I’ll think of “What Would Google Do?”. It’s a good account of what has already happened, but not good enough to become the next prophecy of what is around the corner for any of us. I recommend reading it if you would like a book about the past ten years of business and the internet.

For prohecies I will go somewhere else. At this point I’m looking very much forward to Chris Anderson’s book about the Free economy. Will tell you more about that as soon as I get my hands on it!

Pity. Looks like Apple will not help solve the book problem mentioned previously. They have left it to Amazon to define the reading experience moving forward. Can’t get over how Apple could let this one go, but according to Jobs people don’t read anymore. Well, Steve, Jeff and whoever else would like to make extra money: I would pay more for a book which could give me the audio experience when I need it and the reading experience when I have the time.

Article on Gartner analyst Van Baker’s comments to be found here:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9129018&intsrc=hm_list

Around the 2009 presidential inauguration of president elect Obama, Amazon.com-owned Audible.com started sponsoring Slate.com. I heard about it in the Slate Political Gabfest podcasts. In true internet fashion Audible.com were giving away a book if you’d sign up for a test membership.

For a few years now getting the time to read books has been very challenging, but staying up to date with news on business and politics has been no problem thanks to podcasts, and for a while they have indeed dominated my listened tracks.

So if there is time to listen to news, there will probably also be time to do that and read a book per month, and I went to the special offer at Audible.com and downloaded my first book.

I’ve now been testing the format for about a week, and I’ll comment a bit on the format.

While you can consume a book without stopping whatever else you’re doing – cooking, cycling, walking, etc. – and while you do get the same content, the format of Audiobooks – for all its advantages – also has some shortcomings:

• if you’re listening to a book, which has interesting graphs, you don’t get those
• if you’re interested in quoting from the book you’re reading you’ll have to write the actual quote by listening and writing, listening and writing, until you get it right.
• BIG ONE: you can’t easily search through an audiobook. I’m listening on an iPod Nano, and it just doesn’t have the entire text of the book in the “show notes”, and the chapters don’t necessarily come with easy navigation either. So flipping an audiobook open and finding a specific reference is tedious, and can’t be recommended.

There are probably plenty of other reasons that audiobooks aren’t even close to replacing books at this point, but I’ve downloaded my first audiobook and trying it out. It’s a very recent book by Jeff Jarvis with the title “What Would Google Do?”

I’ll get back to that book and talk a bit about it in a future post – for now, I just want to get on with the book!

Google has added mobile editing for its Google Docs spreadsheets. This means that you can now edit all your spreadsheets on the go. Symbian S60 phones – like the Nokia E71 – support this new feature. In fact the only ones left in the dark are Blackberry and Windows Mobile users. Thanks to Maarten and Adam for this!

Many Nokia users will recognize the Nokia Sports Tracker applicaton – especially popular with Nokia users with GPS-enabled phones. In fact Nokia has taken this great little application and added integration between the Polar Wearlink Belt for Nokia and the Nokia N79, so training freaks can now be 100% mobile with their phone while training: listen to music, receive calls, know the distance and how the body reacts to the entire thing.

Now, for those of us not lucky enough to have an N79 or the special Wearlink Belt from Polar, there’s no need to be too disappointed. Nokia added a missing feature to its Sports Tracker Beta v. 1.82 in October of 2008 – they now support maps!

Little known to many, but posted here, the “new” beta is not available of the official Nokia Sports Tracker website. You have to go to Nokia Research and download it. Then install it to your Nokia S60 3.1 device (N82, E71, N95, etc…).

If you’re completely new to how Nokia Sports Tracker works go ahead and have a look at their website and of course make sure to look at some of our family runs – like this and this. Looking forward to more like this from the good folks at Nokia (and Polar).

Yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of Thusgaard.com, and today it’s time for something new.

Thusgaard.com has been many things in the past 10 years: the domain has served and serves as email server for a number of people whose names fit the domain name; it’s been a plain website in the days when website design was difficult, portal page, and for the past 7-8 years Wordpress has been installed on Thusgaard.com. During the entire 10 years the content has been hosted by six different companies, and for the last 3,5 years Unoeuro.com does an excellent job of keeping the site running.

Most notable appearance on the site in terms of content, has been my sister Astrid’s blog which she recently started under her own domain name at http://connectingthedots.dk. During that period we were running Wordpress multi-user, keeping the door open for anyone with a desire to start their own blog.

Recently when Astrid moved out, she mentioned that the newest version of Wordpress looked a whole lot better than the lacking-behind dashboard of WPMU.

So as Astrid has moved out, an none of all the other Thusgaard.com users are actually maintaining websites at Thusgaard.com, I thought I’d skip the jakob. in my URL and start the website design of Thusgaard.com all over again. As I’m writing this the new design is far from finished, but as always with Wordpress it works.

So the website has changed once more – on to the next 10 years.