Life blog

Playing around with Time-Lapse Photography

Trying out my new tripod with an N82. Prepping for doing some time-lapse photography around work.

Where you at?

Funny video. [via Peter B]

Write-by tagging by Darla Mack - 8 Random Things About Me

I usually don't appreciate being tagged, but it's from Darla, so it's hard to ignore. I will share things relevant in this context (see random item 7). Also, this is a good time, as you will see below.

In any case, I'll post the rules, though I might have to ignore a few (sorry for being a spoil-sport, but it'll be evident below, why).

8 Random Things About Me: Darla Mack - Nokia S60 News and Reviews:

RULES
* We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
* Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
* At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
* Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1) Origins: My parents and I all come from different continents, and I have lived on all three of them. And I'm proud of it.
2) Interests: I am deep into my second career (maybe third), which all seem quite different from each other, but I do see a thread through them all.
3) Vices: I am addicted to writing. It's a compulsion. I have a ton of books I want to write and never got to write one last summer (though I wrote it all down in a concentrated version that seemed to purge the need to write the book). I am trying to do a writing project this summer, though, and actually have made some significant progress (that's a good sign).
4) Changes: I've lost my lust for gadgets. Yes! Or at least it seems that way. I'm more interested in the user.
5) Near future: I'm in the middle of some big things. And we're all excited.
6) Now thinking: This site is not about ME, but about some things I think of around the Mobile Lifestyle theme. It may continue that way, even as it wends away from the current topic to the topics that are now getting my attention. My publisher-self has been thinking hard about this site and where I want the writing to go, since I use this site also to be able to point folks to what I've been thinking. The Mobile Lifestyle still dominates my thoughts, but other threads are making their way in and I know it will soon dominate my thinking. I thoroughly enjoy all my readers coming by and discussing things, and I am thinking that maybe as I drift, I will hold everyone's attention, teaching them new things outside their field, interesting things, I hope. Let's see. I think this random nudge is a good time to voice these thoughts.
7) Now people: What's more, I am stressing more my 'first life' connections rather than my 'second life' connections and the conversations that arise in the real world, so I am increasingly tightening my attention channels (with regular 'attention purges' to borrow a phrase from Matt Jones). No offense, but it's really what fits my life best at the moment.
8) Tagging: Hence, I, myself, am leery of any threads that not only rope me in but make me bang my head to think of folks who would enjoy such a thread. So, in the interest of my sanity, I am flipping the last two rules above on their head to read:

* At the end of your blog post, ask eight people to tag themselves and list their names in the comments.
* Don't forget to leave them a comment, thanking them for tagging themselves and leaving a trackback on your blog.

So, eight of you might feel inclined to post 8 random thoughts about you on your site. Be more creative than me. Just remember to leave a trackback here (I'll approve it as soon as possible) and a comment that you posted it so I can go read it too and leave a 'thank you'.

Tchau.

Admob - Transparency at its best

Happened to stop over at Russ' Admob to read up on them and I was definitely impressed with the clear and understandable marketing: show the real business stats.

Way to go Russ!

Thinking about the Web 2.0 Expo 2007

Eh, I'm not so interested in this conference, but I'll be on that side of the world just the week before.

In any case, this workshop might be reason enough to go.

Link: Web 2.0 Expo 2007, April 15-18, 2007, San Francisco, California:

The Iterative App: From Discord to Design

Kelly Goto, Principal and Founder, gotomedia

Track: Design and User Experience
Date: Sunday, April 15
Time: 9:30am - 12:30pm
Location: 2003

Due to the diverse demands of clients, bosses, engineers, and designers, web application design has reached a new level of frenzy and discord. Kelly Goto can help you refine your application development process and project management to an art form. Learn the behind-the-scenes techniques for rapid prototyping and learn to include iterative usability testing cycles in your project development.

But, $1500 for a Web 2.0 conference? Am I cheap or is that a lot?

What the heck? Ford Schick? In a game?

Following a string of cognections, set off by twitters from Matt Jones on game god Warren Spector, led me to Spector's Wikipedia page and this photo below.

I rarely see my name not connected to someone I know or a box of razors.

Ford Schick (from Wikipedia)

* D&D Trivia: One of the game developers was called Lawrence Schick.

Separated at birth?

Happened to be browsing the T3 gadget magazine and noticed the colophon:

Which reminded me of the Sonera logo:

Download the Nokia N73 Time Zone Upgrader

Go figure. I had recently heard of the new Daylight Savings Time rules in the US (at least) and saw some discussion regarding Apple and such.

Well, at least my companie's hands are sort of clean. :-) Here (link below) is a file to update the time zones on an N73. I guess there are other ones for other Nokia phones. At least the S60 ones.

This makes me proud.

I'm curious to know who else had been making such files available - Apple? Sony Ericsson? Microsoft? Please let me know.

Link: Nokia - Smartphone - Phone software - Nokia N73 - Product support - Get support and software:

Nokia Time Zone Upgrader
Nokia_N73_TimeZone_upgrader.SIS
23-Feb-2007 | 15.30 KB | English

The date of the "Daylight saving time" will be changing in certain countries during 2007. This application updates database in the device containing the daylight saving time dates. This will help e.g. in avoiding a conflict in calendar synchronisation if the device and PC are having a different time. Please restart your device after installation for the changes to take effect.

Update: While I was posting this, I was doing an SW Update check and, lo!, Apple is also offering a Time Zone update. Yeah!

Awesome video: Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Stephen Johnston pointed out this great video about what the Web has become.

It tells a great story and shows with great examples and animation where we are today with respect to people and the Web.

Check it out.

Click here to go straight to YouTube.

Mobile Le Web 3 pages - get 'em to your phone from here

I set up a link on my WINKsite to the Le Web 3 feed so that you can read it from your mobile.

On your mobile, type in the URL: http://winksite.com/cschick/mobile.

Or, if you live in the US, send MOBILECHARLIE via SMS to 41411 (courtesy of TextMarks).

Or, WINKsite can send an SMS to your phone (more countries) - click here.

Oh, and there's a WidSet, too. Use the button below to get it to your phone.

Heh heh, let me know if any of these aren't working.

Double take: What I thought was just a video, was shot on a phone

I was surfin' around, checking out some of Gabe Mac's videos on his site, listening to his funny Halloween recording when he mentions a video Loïc did a few months back.

Well, I had seen the post about the video and was, well, not to interested, so I didn't watch it.

Well, it turns out that the video was made from an N93 and there were two other guys with Loïc also recording with their phones.

Kinda funny.

'Euh, Mr. Prince of Monaco, could I interview you with my, euh, phone?'

That's balls, Loïc. Way to go.

Link: Podcast: S.A.S. le Prince Albert II de Monaco : Loic Le Meur Blog.

S.A.S. le Prince Albert II de Monaco accepted to give me two minutes for his first podcast ever at the Monaco Media Forum. Thank you again Monseigneur and your team for this podcast and the incredible way you hosted us in Monaco.

I just realized that I have never heard a Grimaldi speak English. Then I remembered that this guy is more American than me - my parents aren't American, his mother was. But, then, I was born in the US, I don't think he was. But, then again, he's a Prince, I'm just a père-de-famile. But, then again, his domain is only slightly larger than my home...

Not that you need to know - US Population at 300 million

Just a little demographic tidbit I heard about yesterday.

If I am not mistaken, the US is bucking the trend of population contraction and lower birth-rate. Finland, too.

The US is a strange beast, in many ways. Finland, too.

cross-posted in other places :-)

Eh. Kinda quiet lately.

My silence here is not reflective of my mind or self - I'm deep into the last weeks of my holidays, enjoying an amazing summer in Finland, and this week, Hungary.

As usual, I have a long list of things to write about - interesting services,  insights, and, hopefully, something new.

A few things I can tell you now (posting from my phone keeps things mercifully short):
- I was invited to write for Vodafone's August edition of receiver magazine (along with Rudy deW and Mark C, among others). I'll give you the link when it goes live.
- My book has sort of stalled, as I realize I need  this holiday break to re-focus my thoughts and spirit.
- I've done some deep thinking about mobile Web services (don't I always?) and have noticed myself looking even farther forward. I think this last wave of the Web is already making inroads into the mobile world. But now my mind's on the next wave - for the mobile and fixed domains.
- And, finally, some interesting stats from IN, jun06, the Inside Innovation insert from Business Week:*

- 3.2 M Blackberries
- 50 M PDAs
- 70 M iPods
- 190 M Gameboys
- 820 M PCs
- 1.5 B TV sets
- 2 B Mobile phones [cs: and growing faster than all the others, I'm sure]

In the  mean time, if you have something cool to share, please leave a comment.

*I was not impressed by the insert. Indeed, 'innovation' is getting to be a tired concept and word for me. There's too much adulation of folks who make clever stuff and so much saccharine advice. Blech. Real innovators just do it, not sit around and pontificate.

Way way way off-topic: Brasil 1x0 Croatia

A wee tid-bit: I'm half-Brasilian and grew up in Brasil. Natch, football* is a passion (my daughter and son play it). As fates would have it, I married an amazing footballer who shares my love of the game.

This month I pulled out the TV from storage to watch the Cup (as I do every 4 years).

What's this got to do with the Mobile Lifestyle? Uh, nothing really. So, here's a mobile plug:

I've been following the matches I can't watch with Yahoo's FIFA World Cup mobile portal.

Hmmm, maybe a review is in order.

*Football? Yes, I might be an American, but I grew up calling it football and now I live in Europe. Football is a game you play with your feet, not with tons of padding and a helmet and a ball nestled in your arms. :-P

I've been interviewed

Oh-ho. Seems like Phil finally has captured me for the future.

Thanks Phil for including me in your illustrious list of interviewees. :-)

Go listen to this and other recordings about S60.

Here's also an intro you can read.

Link: Voice of S60

Charlie Schick was a good sport to be my very first victim interview. He's was with S60 way back in the early days and provides a very interesting and unique perspective. Many thanks to Charlie for coming on the show! Here's the podcast...

Not a bad interview, if I may say so. Very pleased. If you want to know where I came from and what I'm thinking of, this is a great place to find out about it. :-D

Why has everyone written a book? A call for action.

The back story
I listen to a set of talks and interviews that feed the part of me that is not a mobile geek: The Long Now Seminars, Ira Flatow's Science Friday, Larry Magid's Larry's World, and Moira Gunn’s Biotech Nation (all highly recommended). One thing I have noticed is that practically everyone who is invited to speak has written a book.

Now, you would think that in the early 21st century, an online presence would have some sort of command. But, no, the atoms of a book still reign in determining who’s a pundit. Even über-bloggers like Robert Scoble and Loïc Le Meur have written books that were printed.

Last week, I had the good fortune (thanks, Stephen) to be invited to dinner with Susan Crawford, a law professor who is a leader in Internet policy activities and the spark behind OneWebDay, a kinda Earth Day for the Web. As an aside, Susan is sharp, funny, and very enthusiastic about what she does. It was a pleasure to meet her, and I look forward to further chats with her about the Internet, academia, East Coast, and other sundry topics.

Well, I was mentioning how every pundit has a book and asked if Susan had one. Like me, she has other writing channels - she has written many law articles - but, no, she hasn’t written a book yet. She did mention a book that is brewing and that she hopes to work on it this summer (I hope I’m not putting her on the spot). Then, quick as ever, she turned the tables on me and asked if I had written a book.

Heh, heh.

My story
I was a professional writer before I joined Nokia. I was a columnist, managing editor, and editor for various print and online publications. And, yes, just before I joined Nokia, I did write, with some friends, a book on advanced phone systems (mostly computer telephony).* It was a minor book with a decent run at a decent telecomms publisher, and it led to another book deal with the publisher that I had to turn down due to my move to Finland and what not (such is my life).

Since then, I have been hankering to publish one of my own. My writing in the past few years has belonged to someone else (and all of it marketing-related, ugh)** and I have been relegated to jotting down ideas and plots and snippets that may some day be rolled into a story or a book.

I did hope I would have been the first to write a how-to book for Series 60, since I was at the right place, at the right time, with the right access to info, and had written some of the first short guides. But, no, never could work out the time. I then was thinking of a book on Lifeblog and Digital Memories. But, no. I also had a few opportunities to write other books for Nokia, but it didn’t work out.

The only book-related thing I have ever done since joining Nokia was to write a chapter in the Nokia MITA books back in 2002. Really doesn’t count.***

Sigh.

The action
Well, thanks to Susan, and aided by a few recent whacks of the cosmic 2x4, I have revisited all my notes and such to see what book I’d like to work on. The funny thing is that I found almost 30 book ideas, ranging from geeky non-fiction, such as a book on the mobile lifestyle, to general non-fiction, such as the history of bananas, to science fiction and fantasy, such as, well, I won’t say, and general fiction, such as about a guy who does karaoke.

Oy vey.

I did pick one particular topic to write a book on, related to some burning issues I see in the mobile life. I’ve worked up a rough outline and such and have started to collect info, much of it already collected on this site or in my emails. Some of you who read this site will even get called up for an interview or for some interesting details of things you have told me over the past year or so.

 

It’s been great to focus on this book and get back to my obsessive writer roots. Now, it would be great to land a publisher already this early, or, better yet, get some sort of advance that would allow me to take some time off to write the book. Even better than that, I would love to get a huge chunk of money so that I could write all the books I have lined up to write. And, yes, even though I was faculty at Harvard (Medical School), I promise that if you give me a half-million, I, still, won’t plagiarize. :-)

Are there any books you are burning to write? Do you have one that needs editing or publishing? Is there any book you’d like me to write? Let me know.

Or, if you are a publisher (hey, Ajit!) and are looking for books, give me a ping and let’s see what we could do.

 

As for Susan, we are going to keep an eye on each other and cheer each other on to complete our books. Kinda fun.

*Also prior to joining Nokia, I wrote a novel (unpublished, still) and compiled an anthology of my short-stories. I have them in a pretty pdf, but I have never put them online.

**Hey, this site is mine and has been a sanity saver. I subscribe to Hugh’s idea on how to be a creative person: have a paying job and do your passion on the side. I just haven’t been so good about the side passion, though. :-(

***I also review relevant books here on this site, so feel free to offer some for me to review. For example, I wouldn’t mind reviewing Tomi Ahonen’s latest on communities, Mark Curtis’ book on culture, or Loïc’s book on blogging (yes, I can read French).

Have you ever noticed what your writing topics are?

What’s great about having your own website is that you end up after a while with a long list of things you have written about that in the end interest you somehow. Then, when you look back upon all that, you realize what kind of focus and perspective you have in your particular writing.

Some folks are focus on design, others on weird cognitive connections (cognections), others about how people do, others on gadgets and gizmos (and pink!), and others on general industry stuff.

When I look back at my stuff, I realize I seem to write in a philosophical, culture-watcher kinda way, commenting on what is happening now, shift in behaviour and use, and trends that will transform how we live. Do you think that's a fair assessment?

Charlie Schick: Mobile Philosopher.

What do your topics tell about you?

Do you know The Pondering Primate?

This Mister Goriller has a vibrant site with plenty of excellent coverage of SMS services, mobile marketing, and a really good thread going on regarding physical to mobile links (like barcodes and stuff).

Read him.

But the main thing I want to point out today is that this guys is no plain vanilla gorilla. He's a true silverback - an Ironman!

Kick some serious bananas, man!

Link: The Pondering Primate: Lots Of Ground To Cover This Week.

I leave for CTIA today and posting will be be spotty. I assure you that I will post my interviews and the neat mobile applications I see.

If you have a mobile story you want to tell, email me.

After covering the mobile world for a couple days, I fly to Phoenix to compete in IronMan Arizona.

Tee hee - Series 60 on Sprint?

I was looking into the US carrier services and saw this image on the Sprint pages. If my eyes don't deceive me, that's the Series 60 interface with a fake battery and signal bar on top.

I am claiming that it's a fake until someone corrects me saying that's a real screen shot from a real Sprint network phone. All the other images here are Sprint phone screen shots (or at least it looks more like it).

Strawband®

While in the heat of discussion with Scott Rafer about broadband, I flippantly called mobile connections 'strawband', as in 'sucking bandwidth from a..'.

I've been using 3G for some time. I'll believe it when it's real.

Now, WiFi, on the other hand...

MobHappy creating a Mobile Blogger Network

Interesting.

Link: MobHappy: Mobile Blogger Network.

If you write a blog about mobile stuff, you might be interested in joining our Blogging Network.

Camera Corner: Lifeblogging with the Nokia 7610 by Gina Trapani- The Digital Journalist

Super Photographer Gina seems to be hooked on the 7610 and Lifeblog. Go Gina!

Link: Camera Corner: Lifeblogging with the Nokia 7610 by Gina Trapani- The Digital Journalist.

Since I got my 7610, I've turned into a text messaging fanatic who takes cameraphone snapshots and short videos of everything and anything - that perfect antipasto I had in Sicily, a funny bumper sticker, or my nephews wearing Jackie O. sunglasses.

Marc's Voice: Anina.net

Link: Marc's Voice: Anina.net.

I met Anina at BlogHer. She's an 'in your face" power A-List woman, determined to take on the world - on her terms. I guess being a supermodel trains you pretty well.

Anina's still rocking! I hope to have dinner with her and Paris Match on Thursday.

Blog your way to the top - mobile behaviour from a geeky supermodel

More on über-geek-model, Anina.

Way to go, Anina!

Link: Blog your way to the top - mobile behaviour from a geeky supermodel.

She had a vision of her own corporation, clearly not a money driven one, but one that brings people together, working together as a team, connecting people. No pun intended. In Anina's words 'I'd love to come to a position economically where I can make my friends work and say "lets do this and that and here’s a budget for it". I'd like to be a super model, encouraging young women to loose their techno-phobia and perhaps then they would start to chose computer sciences as a study and move more into the mobile industry [where] there will be many job opportunities.'

1995 vs 2005, are we thinking different?

Another view of Web 2.0, comparing it to web 1.0.

Let's party like it's 1999.

Link: Om Malik’s Broadband Blog - 1995 vs 2005, are we thinking different?.   

1995 vs 2005, are we thinking different?

Via Rodrigo.

Mobile Monday comments - Easy mobile sign up

I've been a proponent of using the PC, browser, or mobile in a unified way - basically, using the channel most suited for a particular activity. One area that can get overlooked is a service subscription process. Of course, it can be easiest to sign up using a PC, but for some services, signing up from the phone might bee just as easy. For example, signing up with a short code via SMS makes it easy to capture already a subscriber's phone number.

I think it is a challenge to actually make sign up simple for some services, say a blogging app. But, it can be done, for example, by having simple defaults for the person who signs up via the mobile, that then can be changed when they get to a PC. I think Kodak does this with their uploader app. You just upload, even if you don't have an account. You can then go to your PC and complete the process.

What triggered my thoughts here was Mobile Mike's insightful comment in his report from his and Russ' most recent Mobile Monday. I think he also hits it on the head for the quick demo and sign up process (been there, suffered that!):

Link: This is Mobility � Blog Archive � Mobile Demos - Grabbing Attention vs. Creating a Stir.

I know all the reasons why people keep the registration process mostly on the PC, but I still think it’s wrong. Let sign up for your service be as much of an impulse event as possible. Let one user recommend it to a friend and start using it right there at the gathering they’re having, without needing to go back to a PC to sign up and then use at some future point. If I’m at a concert and someone tells me about photo sharing software they’re using, you bet I want to start using it right then. Delaying that event will cause a lot of loss in terms of users. When I sign up later at my PC there’s nothing for me to do, I’ll probably forget about the app pretty quick. The positive use I could have had at the event where I heard about the software is a powerfully marketing tool, use it by enabling it. You need to be able to capture that event if you’re working on a mobile social application. The software and service are situated and realtime, the sign up and start of use should be as well.

Russell Beattie Notebook - New Palm Logo Analysis

Russ made a comment on the most recent change of logos at Palm.

Link: Russell Beattie Notebook - New Palm Logo Analysis.

Call me a stick in the mud, but I think the new Palm logo doesn't have the same cool-factor that the first one did. The old one reminds me of BMW - especially when you see it as a button on a device - it conveys a sense of technical excellence. The new one is like a dot-com startup which alludes to the old logo, but then adds orange as a sign of "innovation," but I don't think it works.

...

Not to mention the fact that they're throwing away years of brand-recognition as well...

Being from a marketing group at Nokia, I think deeply about corporate brands. Whenever we did anything, such as Lifeblog or Series 60, we always thought of the look and feel of the app and marketing material, consistency, clarity, credibility, made gradual changes, and so on.

I was blessed to receive brand training (brand culture, more like it) from the top gurus from Nokia themselves, the ones who have been growing it for the past 10-15 years. One of the first exercises was to find dumb-brand-director moves at other companies. My example was the big change Palm did (that very day) from the strong brand recognition of the Palm name and colours to Palmone and the stupid garish brown and orange.

Yes, that was basically brand suicide.

I get a feeling that Palm finally shot that stupid brand director and brought back the old one to straighten out the brand again. But, the change will be gradual. And a lot of equity was lost - hmm, might that help explain Palm's invisibility in the current market? We always point to the contributions of brand screw ups to the fall of a company.

Palm's best bet is to fade to just the name, no button or anything. Turn the text black or blue (no pun there, just get rid of the orange). They should also run a brand building campaign to expunge the orange - maybe a 'Palm then, Palm now' campaign, maybe even a 'Palm oops', too, and laugh at the orange (I mean, you can't really hide it any more).

I heard some other things I don't know if I can repeat, but I get the feeling that over the next few years, Palm will regain their brand recognition and take a better ownership of their historical brand.

I mean, why throw away the lead? Now they are like everyone else and have to (re)gain it.

 

These guys get mobility - do you?

I was doing the usual following of interesting links and stumbled again onto the Rabble site. It's pretty cool, but it doesn't support my operator, so I can't really play with it.

But, here are the guys behind it. I read their site and really feel that these guys get mobility. Their thinking centers around user created content (note: NOT consumption of content).

I was reading some stats last night - communication will still be the biggest chunk of mobile revenues. Obviously voice will always dominate (most forecasts have been saying for years now 70-80% of total mobile revenues), but p2p (i.e. communication) is the next biggest and includes messaging (text, picture, video, email, chat).

As I have said before, people want to communicate. The new phones with imaging and video capabilities are allowing folks to communicate with their own content. Services that make it easy for folks to capture, manage, and share their personal content will be the winners in the mobile space. My money is on Rabble.

Here's a quote from their site. Go and read more of their thinking.

Link: Mobility is the key.

A PC without the internet is still a PC. A mobile device without the network is useless. We cannot refer to people as "users" anymore; they are mobile nodes on a participatory network which is constantly morphing around them as they move about.

Another great line from Rabble: 'You're still blogging from your PC? That's so last year.'

InterCasting Corp: Phone Call 2.0

More wisdom from the blog of the folks who created Rabble. Is anyone paying attention to these guys?

Link: InterCasting Corp: Phone Call 2.0.

Nonvoice multimedia + conversation with the world = evolved communication.

And that is Phone Call 2.0. ...

Simply put, our personal communication is evolving to include multimedia. That communication is converging on one device, the mobile phone, which is quickly turning into a Personal Media Device.

InfoTrends/CAP Ventures Releases Worldwide Mobile Imaging Study ResultsStudy Projects Nearly 900 Million Camera Phone Shipments Worldwide by 2009

The fun is only just starting.

Link: InfoTrends/CAP Ventures Releases Worldwide Mobile Imaging Study Results

Study Projects Nearly 900 Million Camera Phone Shipments Worldwide by 2009

.

“Society is moving into an era of ubiquitous imaging that offers the ability to capture, store, send, print, and view an image anywhere,” commented Jeff Hayes, a Director at InfoTrends/CAP Ventures. “We believe mobile imaging will have the kind of impact that e-mail had on document communications in the 1990s. We project that the total number of images captured on camera phones will reach 227 billion by 2009, exceeding the number of photos taken on digital still cameras and film cameras combined!”