Snow Leopard Installed: Blackberry Tethering?

After installing Snow Leopard I decided to sync my Verizon Blackberry Tour. Snow Leopard wanted to establish a "Network Connection" with it. here is the screen shot.

arrived.jpg

Woot!

Snow Leopard!

Snow Leopard Shipped!

This message has been sent using the picture and Video service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, Quicktime@ 6.5 or higher is required.

Snow Leopard Installation

I am going to live Tweet and Blog about my Snow Leopard installation, follow me on Twitter @georgemag

Snow Leopard

I pre ordred Snow Leopard the next update for the Mac OS. I will be blogging live tomorrow night as I go through the update.

Rapid Fire

There are no games on the Blackberry because Blackberry users are too busy typing, texting and Twittering to care.

Google Books

Hey some of the best public domain history books are available on Google Books now. I am currently reading Famous Men of Rome: Coriolanus on my iPhone.

This message has been sent using the picture and Video service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, Quicktime@ 6.5 or higher is required.

Life at LTE Speed

Soon we will have 25 mbps data connections over wireless. This will change our lives electronically. Right now you can download and watch movies from Netflix. I hope I can replace TimeWarner with DirecTV over the web with an LTE connection in 18 months.

Blizzcon is upon us! I haven't been this excited since Obama became President. It will be the most watched media event on the internet. There are 11 million subscribers to World of Warcraft, there is also an additional world wide fan base for  Diablo and Starcraft, tow additional games from Blizzrad each expecting a new release soon. Did I mention the event occurs in Anaheim right next to Disneyland? It does. However there are only 12,000 tickets available for the Anaheim Convention Center for the show. So most of us will have to use Twitter or Live Streaming over the Internet to participate and see the panels. Fortunately I have DirecTV and can record all 26 hours of the event.

Playstation 3 Price Drop to $300.

Price has long been the barrier to entry. I can finally justify purchasing this as a Game System and a Blu ray player. I will even go out an upgrade my DVD library to Blu ray, because Blu ray is like Real Life, but with Air Conditioning.

Suddenly the Playstation is awesome. I want one now with the new low price and the bigger hard drive.

Google Voice

My posts are getting smaller as I begin to use SMS to post from my iPhone and Blackberry. It's almaost as easy as using Twitter.

Storm 2 from Canada. People are buying the Storm 2 in Canada from Rogers and using an AT&T SIM Card with it.

Mobile Blogging

I can send e-mails from my Blackberry. I can Twitter form it to, so why not Blog?

So here goes my first mobile blog from my Blackberry. Instantaneously.

Entourage Cancelled! "Microsoft hugs it out."

Hey according to today's Microsoft Macintosh Business Group announcement, Outlook is coming to the Mac. Entourage is canceled. But it won't happen until the fall of 2010.

This is a very good thing for Blackberry Users with a Mac. We can finally can use our MacBook Pros in the office.

Bizarro LA Times : It's a Blog!

But how do you really feel about it?  www.latimes.com The redesign makes it look more like a blog.  Hmmm...making a newspaper's website look like a blog doesn't really strengthen its credibility as a reliable newsource, does it?  Or maybe that's the point.  People are looking to blogs more and more for sources of information, so LA Times is trying to capitalize on that? 

Indeed the new Los Angeles Times website looks like a very elaborate blog site, imagine my blog with 52 writers and a $114 million dollar budget, oh and it has pictures. This observation was submitted by my girlfriend, Jennifer. I am glad she was my first guest columnist.

Microsoft and Nokia Non-Event

Everyone was so excited about this morning's Microsoft and Nokia announcement today.
It turned out to be a non-event. Nothing exciting to report, Microsoft Office will run on Symbian, the Nokia OS.

I expected that Microsoft would announce the Windows Mobile OS on Nokia Hardware, that would have been great.
It was just disappointing. Nokia makes great phones but its crippled by its software. Imagine a NoKia n97 with Windows Mobile or Android.

That would have rocked.

Response to Calacanis

I have a one word response to Calacanis, JAILBREAK. Jason Calacanis wrote, "The Case Against Apple in Five Parts." Claiming the iPhone and Apples products as a whole are anti-competitive and expensive. By jailbreaking his iPhone he has the ability to run any application he wants and keep his iPhone, he can go further and switch his service to AT&T. Further he can use Linux instead of OS X and buy a $500 PC from Fry's. :)

Why don't the majority of people do this already? Because of convenience. Apple makes it easy on a user to pick up the hardware and start using it. No other software or hardware manufacturer can claim that. No one.

Friend Feed bought by FaceBook: Twitter is on the Clock

Twitter will now face tremendous pressure to find a buyer or an investor with the acquisition of Friend Feed by Facebook today. Possible buyers include Apple and Microsoft. Possible investors include Apple and Microsoft.  Google may or may not be interested. Who knows. No one else in technology or communications has both the funds (cash on hand) or the motivation (to include Twitter in its product and services) to make a move right now. I will write more later. If Twitter doesn't find a business plan now it may never find a profitable business model at all an go they same way as bit.ly, which ironically is the link to this story, http://bit.ly/Duxuw . 

There can be only one.

I have both a Blackberry Tour with Verizon and an Apple iPhone. Why? AT&T's network for phone calls is terrible. But that's beside the point and not the focus of this entry. This Blog entry is all about Twitter!

 

Using Twitter on an iPhone is a dream there are several applications that do a great job, we all have our favorites. On the BlackBerry, "There can be only one." That application is called ÜberTwitter. It works in the background and alerts you if you receive a new Tweet. ÜberTwitter is really, really fast, much faster than Twitterberry. On a Verizon Blackberry this is great because it takes advantage of their 3G "1XEV" Network.

 

ÜberTwitter also allows you to customize a your Tweets with the following features:

Automatically update your location based on the cell tower information provided by your phone, no GPS hardware required.

Integrated ability to upload pictures to a site dedicated to serving ÜberTwitter users.

Ability to optionally update your Google Talk status with your last tweet, making your tweets reach a wider audience then just people following you on Twitter.

You can search for this App on you Blackberry by typing in Ubertwitter, it will take you directly to their website.

MySpace . . . is so 3 years ago.

I think people have outgrown MySpace and have moved on to other sites and services like Facebook and Twitter. MySpace has trouble attracting new users and its turned into a dating site.

What is MySpace's core demographic? Young people, college students, rock bands or have they lost track completely of who they are and what they are all about. A lot like Netscape Communications.

By the end of 2006, the usage share of Netscape browsers had fallen, from over 90% in the mid 1990s, to less than 1%. -

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twitter is a Business App

The Kogi BBQ Truck in Los Angeles uses it to announce where it will be. Legions of hungry people follow it and track the truck on Twitter. When they arrive at the truck, they Twitter an announce how lucky they are to be in line and eating a delicious Korean Short Rib Taco.

This is the only form of mass media advertising for the Kogi BBQ Truck, word of mouth amplified by Twitter, and guess what its free. For not at least, more on that later.

Any business would be foolish not to use Twitter to advertise. Imagine finding a way to spread news to a large audience without having to spend money on an expensive marketing campaign. Twitter turns web ads and its head because anyone can generate a Tweet creating the all important buzz surrounding a product. Buzz.

Restaurants use it to announce daily specials. My company uses it to announce product upgrades and features. At some point Twitter will have to beginning charging Business that use the service. It's proven to be a valuable marketing tool. Its only a question of whether or not Twitter will charge a Flat Rate depending on the number of Tweets for a business per month or begin charging per-Tweets.

If Tweeter does begin to charge per Tweet then it will have to create a business back end to the Website to allow business and individuals to check how the Tweet has propagated on Twitter.
How many 'mentions' a Tweet has received, how many 'ReTweets", direct Messages including the Tweet have traveled between Twitter Users. BusinessWeek has an article on Twitter Speak and all the relative terms.

ReTweet: To repost something that's already in the Twitter stream. Usually preceeded by "RT" and "@[username]," to give credit to the original poster.

Until Twitter develops a business backend to track ReTweets I don't see Twitter creating a per-Tweet business model, but it is promising to see it develop a stable revenue model.

At the end of the day Twitter is a business, it was spawned out of a create idea to use the web and SMS to communicate freely with anyone in the world. However to maintain it it will have to figure out a way to pay the bills.

Everyone has got to eat, especially the folks at Twitter.

Why I Blog?

People have visited and have begun reading my blog: www.techbygeorge.blogspot.com .They ask me a question however, “George why are you starting a Tech Blog?” They go on to say there are so many other blogs out there, what are you offering that’s different. I say this, “I am offering my one brief opinion on what I consider important.”

Doesn’t every Tech Blog do that? I am not trying to be Engadget or Walter Mossberg. I was inspired to do this by Leo Laporte, the Tech Guy. Like Leo I am a person that likes Technology. I also have a strong opinion on certain products and what to share my thoughts with other people. A Blog is the best medium to do that on the internet.

Google Voice App

Recently Apple removed the Google Voice application from the App Store. There is a big controversy surrounding its removal. The FCC is even investigating Apple for its removal. As MJF says, “It has nothing to do with the phone, it’s AT&T pressuring Apple.”

If you have an iPhone then you know how unreliable AT&T’s phone service can be. Apple’s rationale is that the Google Voice App duplicated functionality on the phone.

Google Voice is a call forwarding system at best, it allows me to point a phone number at any phone I may be using. Which is great for travelers that don’t want to purchase an international calling plan, they can just pick up another phone and forward the Google Voice number to it.

Point one phone number to any phone. Its a call forwarding system. So even though there is no app for it on the iPhone for now the basic functionality is still available. This may all be much to do about nothing.

My Jailbroken Friend

I work at a technology company. The people I work with all have fancy phones. Blackberrys, iPhones, HTCs with Android, we even have a guy with a Palm Pre, his name is John he is kind of an eccentric. None of us, I mean none of us at my compnay know anyone with a G1 from T-moblie, thats the Google phone. I have seen one a few times but the last person I saw with a G1 just kept looking at my iPhone.

We do have one person in the office with a "jailbroken," iPhone 3GS, let's call him my jailbroken friend (MJF). Now Apple Says iPhone Jailbreaking is Illegal, fair enough they can say whatever they want, people have found a way to do it and Apple has not found a way to stop it. MJF explains why he jailbreaks;

To do things on my iPhone I was able to do on my Windows Mobile phone.

I would even say Apple does not want to stop "jailbreaking" at all because if they did they would have done it by now. MJF says, "I don't think they care about jailbreaking, because they know there will be life after AT&T." The exclusivity contract with AT&T expires in 2010, that less than 4 months away. I am waiting for an iPhone on Verizon, and I am sure you are too.

Jailbreaking also allows people like MJF to stay on the iPhone. You get to play with the features of the iPhone without having to wait for an Apple approved App to appear on the App Store. there is an advantage in loading your own application on your own phone, at least the iPhone has applications.

I have been very satisfied with the apps I have on my iPhone. I have to give MJF some credit the Apps he has on his jailbroken iPhone more enjoyable and have a greater amount of variety.