Earlier this week Simon asked us to share what we carry with us when we go mobile. Unlike Aliza, my forays out of the office tend to be short, usually for things like client meetings or local presentations, so my needs are pretty sparse. I bring with me what I need to accomplish my trip’s goals, plus the general tools that I find I may need no matter where I am headed.
There’s nothing particularly fancy inside, but it is all functional and each piece fits its required role perfectly.
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There’s a new application in town for those who want a simple approach to maintaining their appointments: Deadline. They boast of being “the simplest calendar ever made,” though a variety of features are already in place or being planned.
After signing up for a free account, you’ll get a web interface with a box to type. Put in something like “Feed the cat next week” and it will strip off the “next week” part, parse it to get the date, and make the rest the text of your reminder. Then it adds it to the rest of your reminders on the web page. A search box lets you find reminders with particular text, and brighter white is used to highlight the more immediate tasks.
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A little over a six weeks ago, I finally switched to an iPhone 3G – I’d been holding out for the white 16GB model to arrive in the UK and pounced as soon as they started to arrive at O2 stores.
I’ve been as enchanted with the mix of goofy and useful applications from the iTunes App Store as anyone else. Initially, I sought to find and install the mobile counterparts of my desktop and web-based applications – eBay, Facebook, Twitteriffic, Last.fm, WordPress, etc
Of course, the real value of iPhone applications are in areas which truly leverage mobility – eBay as an iPhone app is only marginally more useful than eBay running in Safari on an iPhone.
However, there’s a class of iPhone app emerging that seeks to exploit mobility in ways that were previously difficult to conceive.
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I can’t get the Who’s song “Going Mobile” out of my head, and it is driving me crazy.
The other day I came across VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2008 list of companies and have been stressing out ever since. Combine that with attending the latest BlogHer conference and watching several power mobile device users in action (Blackberries implanted in hand, fingers flying at breakneck speed), and no wonder I am starting to feel the pressure of change.
As a Web worker, I can see that my industry is already moving toward being at the forefront of adopting mobile technologies, but I’m not sure exactly what that mobile work looks like.
I’m even less sure how to equip myself properly to handle the technical requirements of mobile work as I’m still trying to get my mobile communications equipment up to snuff. I think I need a technology consultant who can assess my current devices, suggest affordable upgrades, and provide me with a strategy that can help me avoid penalties and too many additional fees from my telecommunications companies not to mention some advice on how to adapt to mobile work. Otherwise, this move toward mobile is going to break my bank not to mention blow my mind.
Can I really go mobile?
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Like a lot of Web Workers, I have come to rely on Twitter to stay connected with friends and colleagues. We’ve covered ways to use Twitter as a productivity tool, and as I do become more reliant on it, having access while away from my PC has become more attractive to me.
I have never been a big user of text messaging and have always found it to be a bit of a klunky way to work with Twitter. Luckily, one of the things that makes Twitter so attractive is the myriad of connectivity options available.
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Only the FON-ely...FON-liness Of The Long Distance Runner. Yes, I had a whole bank of puns to title this post. They’ll all aptly tragic in telling the tale of a promising piece of web worker infrastructure that has in essence become a network of very lonely and isolated hotspots…
I first came across FON at O’Reilly’s Emerging Telephony 2006 conference, as then company evangelist Ejovi Nuwere outlined a vision of a global wifi network built from the grassroots, owned and operated by its users. Ejovi explained that users installing a FON hotspot would be able to earn revenue from its use or, if they agreed to charge no access fee, use every other FON hotspot at no cost when travelling away from home.
A few months later I recieved a complimentary La Fonera router, becoming the 4089th ‘Fonero’ (currently there are 671′363 users). A few days ago, I switched off my La Fonera, packaging it for an eBay bidder that paid just $17. Now the thing is, none of those 671′362 other Fonero’s hotspots were in places I where I needed connectivity…
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I don’t know about you, but I vividly remember the day I learned HTML. I took my first HTML course in the fall of 1994 for $10 given by a guy who was building Web sites in Santa Fe for local artists. The entire world opened up to me and that alone was worth every penny of the ten bucks spent.
Now, the whole world is going to be made compact enough to fit on my mobile phone or device so a book like Mobile Web Development (by Nirav Mehta, 2008 Packt Publishing) is a useful read even though it has been a long time since I’ve rolled up my sleeves, squinted my eyes, and dug into code. Read the rest of this entry »
