August 23rd, 2007

Best mobile VoIP headset ever

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 6:53 am

Categories: Gadgetry, Hardware, Mac, Mobility, Windows

Tags: VoIP, Mobile, Plantronics, Headset, Marc Orchant

I’ve been using the new Virtual Phone Booth from Plantronics for the past few weeks and it has utterly transformed my Skype (and Gizmo and Google Talk) experience. Formerly, I have either relied on the built-in microphone and speakers on my laptops (with the attendant howling and echoing that too often seems to plague VoIP calls) or used the excellent but too-bulky-for-travel Plantronics DSP 500 headset. That big unit has been a great solution for voice recognition and podcasting but is not exactly comfortable or convenient for all-day work.

The Virtual Phone Booth is a pair of noise-isolating earbuds with an integrated microphone boom on that connects either directly through the microphone and headphone jacks on your PC or using an included USB adapter. The sound quality is excellent and the comfort is all-day, forget-you-have it-on. Folks I’ve been talking to via Skype and other services have repeatedly remarked on the excellent sound quality and in local tests with Audacity, the recording quality is more than sufficient for podcasing and screencasting duty. Volume and muting controls are built into a slim tub on the cord which also features a small clip to attach to your shirt.

The Virtual Phone Booth packs into an included hard case that’s about the size of a candy bar so it slips into the gadget bag with no problem and gives me a completely portable solution with no compromises when I’m out and about or on the road. This unit is a definite keeper! The Virtual Phone Booth retails for about $110.00 and is compatible with both the Mac OS and Windows.

I’ve also been using the latest Bluetooth headset from Plantronics, the Voyager 520. I’ve used the Voyager 510, an over-the-ear boom style headset, for years as it’s one of the most comfortable headsets I’ve used with excellent battery life and the relatively uncommon ability to multi-pair which allows me to use it with both a laptop and a mobile phone or with two mobile phones (yes, I am a gadget freak).

The 520 is a more conventional pod-shaped design that offers the same benefits and even better battery life. Plantronics has designed a new molded rubber earpiece that does a great job of isolating outside noise so that even in noisy environs on on a windy day the saound quality is excellent. The ear hook, unlike many headsets I’ve evaluated, is made from a very soft and flexible material that does not chafe or scratch. It’s a single button design which makes adjusting the volume or using other functions very easy. Plantronics has also designed a nice desktop stand (pictured here) that makes it very convenient to pop the unit in for a quick charge.

The Voyager 520 retails for $99.00 and worked perfectly with my MacBook, Lenovo Tablet PC, Nokia N95 and Apple iPhone.

August 21st, 2007

Keeping my (laptop) cool

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 8:52 am

Categories: Gadgetry, Hardware, Mobility

Tags: Desktop, Unit, Laptop Computer, Marc Orchant

I’ve been using the latest model from the folks at LapWorks - the Futura - for a while now and was delighted to see that every attendee at the recent Gnomedex conference received one as a premium for attending. It’s a nice sturdy unit that provides two form factors - a flat desk surface when you have no desk or table available and an elevated wedge stand when you do. The cutouts provide a lot of air circulation that keeps both my MacBook and Lenovo X61 Tablet PC nice and cool (both tend to get pretty toasty) and there are nicely spaced rubber bits arranged on the work surface to hold the laptop in place even at extreme elevation angles.

At $29.95, the price is right and the unit is compact and light enough to fit in my gadget bag with no problem. This unit is ideal for more compact laptops like the ones I’m using. If you have one of those honking big 17″ desktop replacement units, you might want to look at another model - LapWorks offers a number of different products for both mobile and desktop use.

August 18th, 2007

Is the iPhone wrecking the web?

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 9:13 am

Categories: Microsoft, Mobility, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Web, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, Web Browser, Marc Orchant

Scott Gilbertson, writing at Compiler on Wired News posted a pretty inflammatory piece titled “The iPhone is Internet Explorer 4 All Over Again“. As you might imagine, the comment thread is long, heated at times, and populated with the expected mix of “you’re an idiot!” and thoughtful replies both positive and negative. Gilbertson is essentially trying to argue that Apple gets a pass on stuff that would (and has) gotten Microsoft into big trouble and unloved.

While I think that there’s the germ of a good question in his piece, it was asked in far better fashion by ScottMcNulty over at TUAW. My response is that Gilbertson is barking up the wrong tree and makes a horribly flawed analogy. Here, in a nutshell, is why I think so:

• The iPhone is a fringe device used by a couple of hundred thousand people. IE4 was one of the dominant browsers of its day on the dominant operating system platform that, through the implementation of proprietary tags and features, broke the browsing experience for Netscape users (the other big gun at the time). Netscape “lost” as a result and IE became the dominant browser. There is zero chance that optimized for iPhone web sites will have the same effect on the market.
• Most iPhone websites/apps are variations on existing web properties so no one is being excluded. When they do provide something unique, it’s generally (in my experience) been to address the perceived deficiencies in what Apple has shipped in version 1 of the iPhone and so of little or no interest to users of other mobile devices.
• You can view an”optimized for the iPhone” site in any browser unless the site designer has specifically chosen to prevent this which is their prerogative (unless they’re providing an essential service that cannot be accessed in any other way which would be a ludicrous decision for anyone to make).
• Aside from Flash and some JavaScript, the WebKit-based browser on the iPhone is highly standards compliant. The optimization being done for the iPhone is largely visual enhancements to make the touch screen UI experience better.

What do you think? Is Apple guilty of the same sort of behavior Microsoft engaged in back in the IE4 era? Are they forcing anyone to do anything to ensure their web presence is viable? Do they get a pas just because they’re “cool”?

August 15th, 2007

Great set of iPhone wallpaper images

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 7:13 am

Categories: Gadgetry, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Marketing, Movie, Image, Chris Glass, Marc Orchant

Chris Glass has posted a terrific set of images sized perfectly to be used as wallpaper on the iPhone. My personal favorite (and the one that’s replaced Van Gogh’s Starry Night - at least for now) is pictured here. I love robots - especially ones that transform! What can I say?

And yes, for those who are curious, I did see the movie a few weeks ago. It was good – not great – but I must say the effects were wonderful. As my son said, this movie should be required viewing for all marketing students as a classic exercise in over-the-top product placement. That having been said,  the new Chevy Camaro is one hot looking ride.

Hat tip to Merlin Mann for the link.

August 8th, 2007

Media Temple offers iPhone Account Center

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 6:50 am

Categories: Mobility, Productivity, Web Apps, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Web, Media, Media Temple, Marc Orchant

Media Temple is my hosting provider for my new personal blog and a few web projects I’m currently developing. This morning, they announced a web-based control center specifically designed for the iPhone that allows customers to manage their accounts, add domains, reboot servers, pay bills, and more from the iPhone from a very Apple-esque UI. It’s one of the best designs I’ve encountered to date for the iPhone and provides an anytime, anywhere portal for me to manage my (mt) account.

If you’re not familiar with Media Temple, here’s their self-decription from their About page:

(mt) Media Temple, Inc. is an industry-leading, privately held, profitable web hosting and software application services company based in Los Angeles, California. Since 1998, our company has provided businesses worldwide with reliable, professional-class network environments to host websites, email, business applications, and other rich media content. We are a friendly, accessible group of “technology agnostic” engineers, support professionals, and business developers focused on the continued financial success of our company while adding value to the services we provide.

I particularly like the “technology agnostic” statement. It aligns well with my personal opinion that the tools we have to choose from today, – Windows, Mac OS, or Linux – are all highly evolved, mature, and useful. It comes down to personal preference, experience, and what kind of work (or play) you’re interested in accomplishing.

What impresses me most about Account Center for the iPhone is how well the folks at (mt) have captured the touch screen experience. Out of all of the iPhone-focused web apps I’ve tried, this one looks and works most like the built-in applications on the device itself.

August 1st, 2007

BodyGuardz has my iPhone covered

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 4:40 pm

Categories: Hardware, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, BodyGuardz, Marc Orchant

Since I got my iPhone, I’ve had in safely ensconced in a Speck case that provides a protective rubber bumper around the device. It’s a great bit of gear and it’s saved my iPhone from potential disaster recently when I’ve been at a concert and had the phone inadvertently knocked of my belt and onto the ground (concrete). There’s one big problem with this case – it’s really difficult to get in and out of my pocket because the rubber material tends to grab at the cloth.

I’ve been using touch screen devices for a long time and have always valued the protection a high quality screen protector can provide to protect the sensitive display from developing scratches that inevitably come from regular use. If you’ve used a Palm or Windows Mobile device for any length of time, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The menu area of the screen, for example, tends to be accessed a lot with the stylus and eventually a foggy patch of tiny scratches starts to develop. Solitaire and poker players tend to develop these patches where the deck is drawn from.

Given that the iPhone is essentially a big display on its front face, the idea of protecting it, hardy though the glass surface might be, had a lot of appeal.

So when I was offered a chance to try out the BodyGuardz device wrap made by NLU Products, I jumped at the chance to see whether a thin, clear plastic film could provide the protection I wanted while allowing the iPhone to be seen and used in all its unwrapped glory. Having used the company’s ScreenGuardz products in the past, I was pretty confident that this would be a good experience.

There’s a lot more involved in wrapping and entire device than there is in simply overlaying a screen and I admit I was a little nervous about getting the full body wrap onto the iPhone without picking up a lot of dust or fingerprints in the process.  The BodyGuardz product includes a small spray bottle of application fluid (water and a bit of baby shampoo) designed to make the application and positioning of the film an easy process. The directions said that you cannot use too much fluid so I was very liberal in its application to my hands prior to peeling the film off its backing and on the film itself when I applied it to the phone.

NLU offers a step-by-step video that nicely demonstrates the entire application process as well as one that shows BodyGuardz-clad phones being skidded along a rough asphalt street surface.

I’m happy to report that the film was die-cut very precisely and fit around the various ports and buttons on the iPhone perfectly. The entire process took about 20 minutes (I was trying really hard to be slow and deliberate) and the results are simply extraordinary. The iPhone is now encased in a virtually scratch-proof plastic skin that is crystal clear. As an added bonus, the BodyGuardz material offers better surface adhesion that makes holding the iPhone feel a lot more secure than the slippery finish of the device itself. It slides in and out my pocket with ease and I can still use the Speck case when I’m venturing into hostile territory.

BodyGuardz are available for a number of phones, PDAs, and MP3 players and the iPhone model costs $24.95 for a kit that contains two sets of skins, a squeegee, and an ample supply of the application fluid. I’m seriously thinking about getting a BodyGuardz for my Nokia N95 as well.

August 1st, 2007

iPhone update now available

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 7:28 am

Categories: Hardware, Mobility, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Marc Orchant

I just performed the iPhone Update (to version 1.01) and it went without a hitch. There appear to be numerous small improvements but nothing to get too terribly excited about. Overall performance is just fine (WiFi feels a bit snappier, EDGE about the same) and the only thing I needed to reset was the password on my WiFi connection. Others who have hacked their iPhone are reporting that a full restore needs to be performed and mail accounts and other settings reset. Jason O’Grady has the details here. More anecdotal information is available from the TUAW team who are “live blogging” the update. An updated iPhone manual is also available from the Apple web site (link is in the updater startup screen).

July 26th, 2007

Office 2.0 Conference - an iPhone for every attendee

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 7:45 am

Categories: Events, Mobility, Productivity, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Microsoft Office, Conference, Marc Orchant

I’ve been working with Ismael Ghalimi, Oliver Starr, and Brian Solis on developing a Mobility and Productivity track for the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference. We’re still in the early planning stages in terms of content for that track but Ismael made a bombshell announcement yesterday that is tremendously exciting. Every paid attendee (as well as speakers and sponsors) will receive an iPhone as part of their registration!

At last year’s event, attendees were handed an iPod Nano loaded with conference information. This raises the bar to unprecedented levels and represents a real coup on the part of the conference as it will create the largest concentration of iPhones in a single location ever in San Francisco on September 6 and 7. Of ourse simply handing out iPhones isn’t particularly innovative, although the logistics for pulling this off are interesting and well detailed in Ismael’s blog post. No… what’s really compelling is how the iPhones will be used at the event:

Handing iPhone devices out to all attendees is nice in and by itself, but it gets really interesting if we can match them with the right set of applications. For this purpose, we are working with Etelos, our Diamond Sponsor, and are developing applications to support what some people might eventually call Conference 2.0. When you will meet someone at the conference, instead of handing out a business card, you will just locate her name on the conference’s directory, then click a ‘Send Contact Information’ button. On the Demo Area, you will use a similar interface to share your contact information with exhibitors. And during presentations, you will be able to give real-time feedback and ask questions to the moderator directly from your iPhone.

Very cool indeed.

These will be 4GB units. Attendees can opt to upgrade to an 8GB model and additional information on how this will all work is on the IT|Redux blog. We’ll all be posting on the Office 2.0 Conference blog to provide additional details on the Mobility and Productivity track content as we get sessions and presenters lined up. As a sneak peek, I will say that I’ve been working on assembling a panel of representatives from the major players in the RIA space to discuss the intersection of Office 2.0 and Rich Internet Applications which I think will be a most engaging conversation. I promise no vendor pitches will be allowed – this will be an “unpanel” discussion in that sense and more of a roundtable discussion by thought leaders and active participants in the space.

Update: Brain has some excellent thoughts about the implications of this announcement on his PR 2.0 blog.

July 24th, 2007

Offline reading on the iPhone with Filemarks

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 7:26 am

Categories: Mac OS X, Mobility, Software, Utilities and Add-Ins, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Bookmark, Here, Marc Orchant

Here’s a great idea for iPhone users starved for offline content. Filemarks, a free droplet utility developed by Jamie Wilkinson, builds a bookmark you can sync to your iPhone (via Safari 3 on your Mac or Windows PC) that can contain hi-res images, PDFs, or other data. It’s a free download and seems to work really well. A brief description of the utility from the Insanely Great News web site (co-authors of the droplet and makers of some fine t-shirts) reads:

Filemarks let you store high res images, text files, and PDFs on an iPhone! There aren’t any good ways to do this with the built in Apple tools - you can use iPhoto to copy images, but they’ll be scaled down and become unreadable. If you want to read a pdf on your phone, you have to either email it to yourself or browse to it in Safari. Filemarks store your file’s data inside a bookmark. When you want to view your file, you open the bookmark in Safari on the iPhone and you can view it, whether your phone is online or offline.

July 16th, 2007

More incredible iPhone numbers: 33% of surveyed plan to buy!

Posted by Marc Orchant @ 8:23 pm

Categories: Hardware, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Marc Orchant

I tend to get a little skeptical when I read stuff like this but according to Lightspeed Research who conducted a survey days after the release of the iPhone, just about one third of the nearly 40,000 people surveyed plan to buy one and 90% of them had heard about the iPhone. That’s a stunning accomplishment no matter how you slice it.

Consider these findings from the survey:

• Thirty-two percent of those who do not currently own an iPhone stated that they do intend to purchase one, with 8% planning to purchase in the next 3 months and 22% planning to purchase some time in the future.
• Respondents ages 44 and under are planning to purchase at a rate higher than those ages 45 and over. Forty percent of respondents ages 18 to 24 said they are planning to purchase an iPhone some time in the future, followed closely by 25 to 34 year olds (36%) and 35 to 44 year olds (33%).
• The research shows that nearly 90% of the respondents have heard of the Apple iPhone.
• Among those surveyed, the largest purchasers of the iPhone since its launch are ages 25 to 34 (45%), followed by 18 to 24 year olds (26%) and 35 to 44 year olds (20%). Only 9% of those 45 or older purchased an iPhone.

That’s simply incredible. There must be even bigger smiles in Cupertino right now. And I’m betting the folks at AT&T are pretty happy campers as well. Verizon? Not so much.