I was just on the Wordpress site looking through the plugins database and noticed where they have the new Wordpress for Iphone App available for download from the Apple App Store. As I am sure a lot of you already know I am a huge fan of the Wordpress Project and have been for a long time now, needless to say this new app really excites me. Not only is it huge in the respect that a lot of our clients that are running Wordpress installations can now update their websites with their Iphones but it is also pretty big, in my opinion, to the growth of the Wordpress platform. This added flexibility for Wordpress should go a long way toward making it one of the most popular content management systems on the market today. Here’s a little info on the Iphone app.
Introducing the first Open Source app that lets you write posts, upload photos, and edit your WordPress blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.5.1 or higher), users of all experience levels can get going in seconds. Download it now!
Someone sent me this picture attached to an email w/ speculation as to when Google will finally release it’s much anticipated Cell Phone. I don’t think that anyone really knows for sure when it’s going to hit the shelves for US consumers but you can bet that Google shares will start heading up again. I have heard that it might be late 2008 and I have also heard that it’s been pushed back into 2009. The buzz I hear about the phone is all good, apparently they (Google) have opted to use a Linux based Operating System on this phone, which should make it not only faster but also more reliable / stable.
I ran across something pretty cool today on Amazon that I thought was worthwhile posting here. It’s a neat little device that’s put out by online retailer Amazon.com. Here’s a little bit of info on the Amazon Kindle:
Amazon Kindle is a revolutionary portable reader that wirelessly downloads books, newspapers, magazines and blogs to a crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight.
Kindle customers, no matter where they are in the U.S., can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store and download new content — all without a PC or a WiFi hot spot. Amazon pays for Kindle’s wireless connectivity so there are no monthly wireless bills and no service commitments for customers. The Kindle Store contains over 90,000 books that can be purchased and delivered wirelessly to Kindle, each in less than a minute. Customers can choose from hundreds of top newspapers, magazines and blogs and have their subscriptions auto-delivered wirelessly. All New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
At 10.3 ounces, Kindle is lighter and thinner than a paperback book, carries two hundred books, and includes built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary and wireless access to the Earth’s biggest encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org.
There was a second Nationwide Blackberry outage the other day (see past blog entry). This was the second such outage in recent months where Blackberry Users were unable to retrieve or send email from their beloved devices. This outage was immediately announced on CNN and other major networks and the signs of frustration was even evident on the faces of the newscasters bringing the news, the entire business world seems to have a blackberry addiction! Not me, I carry a Palm Treo, my third one as a matter of fact, and even after trying to migrate to the Blackberry in recent months I found myself migrating back to the Treo.
While I was watching the panic of the service outage rollout in the news I gave my partners a call to find out if they were affected by the outage. Not knowing that much about the Blackberry service and how it works I was curious. Needless to say I was relieved to find out that they weren’t affected in any way and they were able to retrieve their email without any problems. The reason for this is because our Premium Email Service uses different settings than the standard Blackberry service that users get when they purchase their phones.
Not only does it make sense to upgrade to our Premium Email Service for the dramatic filtering of spam but also for the reliability that we bring to the table in terms of downtime, etc. I couldn’t resist posting this entry upon discovering this. If you or someone you know was affected by the nationwide Blackberry outage and would like to learn more about Pleth Premium Email Solutions, please don’t hesitate to let us know, we would love the opportunity to work with you and discuss our flagship product…
Wow, again? I just saw this on CNN. Yet another reason why I have a Palm Treo Smartphone instead of a Blackberry! Not that I dislike the BlackBerry, I brought one home and gave it a try before I exchanged it for my Treo. Having had a few Treo’s in the past I preferred to opt for what I was comfortable with. (BlackBerry out of service in North America - CNN.com). This is the second time that I can think of in recent months that BlackBerry Service has went down. I did a little digging around and found that this time the service outage was blamed on a server error.
NEW YORK (AP) — An outage has disconnected BlackBerry smart phones across North America. AT&T Inc. says the disruption Monday is affecting all wireless carriers. AT&T first learned about the problem at about 3:30 p.m. ET.
There’s no word on the cause or when the problem might be fixed. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion did not immediately return a phone call.
I am currently beta-testing an exciting product that we hope to be able to roll out to our clients this year. It’s a Synchronization tool that works with Pleth Premium Email Solutions Webmail Client (our web-based email client) and Microsoft’s popular Outlook Email Client. This new tool will allow our customers to synchronize their Calendars, Tasks, Notes, and Contacts with their Web-Based Email Account.
Why is this such an exciting product for me? I utilize Microsoft Outlook for my day to day operations, my calendar dates back for at least the last decade or so, and it also sync’s with my Palm Treo Smartphone. I also use tasks inside of Microsoft Outlook to manage tasks that I have for client projects. I also frequently take notes on my phone when I am in meetings, or even heading to the grocery store. By adding the synchronization functionality with our webmail client, I can be in the Batesville office working from my laptop or in Vegas or Chicago in meetings and have the most recent calendar, tasks, and notes from my desktop or primary computer at my fingertips. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this product.
This software will be beta tested for the next month or so by my partners and I to ensure that it’s ready to roll out to our clients and free of bugs. At this time it appears to be working great.I will be reporting back on this software closer to it’s release date. I haven’t got any insight as to what we will charge for this software but I am guessing that it will be available as an add-on to our email service and could roll out as low as $1 - $2 per month per account, or at least that is our projected estimated cost.
One of the tragedies for me of this holiday season was the death of my Cingular 8525 Smartphone. I absolutely loved that phone, I had it all, I was a pioneer in exploring the whole Mobi platform where I could view television from my phone wherever I was at. I also had gotten pretty handy with the slide out keyboard that a lot of power users have struggled with, I was just content with my phone. It started locking up on me for no reason about a month ago, I would just hit reset and move on. Then about a week before Christmas it just started freaking out on me pretty bad, the Windows Mobile Operating System refused to work right, it had stopped syncing a while back as well, but in just operating the phone as a standalone it would lock up on me during phone calls and not allow me to hang up and the screen would go to bits sometimes to where it wouldn’t be reliable to use. On my birthday (the 21st) I got up to use it and it just wouldn’t respond, we tried everything, os reloads, hard resetting the phone, etc. and it wasn’t working right.
I went to my local Cingular Corporate Store and they helped me find a suitable replacement for it, a Blackberry, my partners Greg and Steve both use Blackberry’s and have been extremely happy with them so I thought, “what the heck”, I gave it a shot. I brought it home and got pretty attached to it right away but had some issues with it syncing up with my Outlook (remember, I am a power Outlook user from way-back). I kept looking at the price tag on this phone and realizing that I didn’t in my heart feel that I was getting my moneys worth out of it so I carried it back to Cingular and traded it in for a Treo 680 (I have owned Treo’s before and been very happy).
I brought the Treo home and plugged it in and it immediately synced up with Outlook 2007 on Vista and over the holidays I enjoyed getting familiar with my Treo all over again. I have to admit that I am a happy camper, still miss the 8525 a little bit but the Treo is far better for what I need it for and that’s business communications. I was able to shoot out emails and text messages with no problem while out of the office. I still have some customization stuff to do with it so that it’s 100% what I need but should be able to wrap that up this week while all of our clients are still shut down for the holidays and it’s quite around the office.
One thing that I did notice right off the bat was how easy our email solution was to plug into the Treo, and how well it interacted. The Pleth Email Solution is a premium email solution that we offer our clients for a small monthly fee. I was able to setup my phone (not remembering our own settings off the top of my head) in under five minute
Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device: Kindle Store