Mobilemind

One screen of my iPhone is dedicated to essential travel apps and I'd like to share that list with you. For comparison I'm also including a link to and the short list of Travel Tech: Top 20 iPhone Travel Apps from National Geographic Adventure.

My key travel apps for iPhone (prices as of July 3, 2009):

1. TravelTracker with TripIt $7.99

   If you take more than 6 trips a year get this app and sign up for TripIt service on the web. TravelTracker shines over the free TripIt app because it keeps past trips and has many more features. Silverware is a good company and this is a good app. Loved the previous TravelTracker incarnations on the Newton & the Palm, and I got it on iPhone as soon as it came out as a new-from-ground-up, smarter app. I'd hold off on getting the “Pro” version for now though... there are some iPhone 3.0 issues to sort out. In a few weeks I will be upgrading to TravelTracker Pro though, so I can get live flight status plus download and upload to TripIt. Update: A new version of TravelTracker posted to the App Store today—July 3, 2009.

2. TripIt for iPhone Free

   Huh? You just said TravelTracker. I use both. The TripIt app is less cluttered and faster— for the current trip, but I can not easily forward an itinerary or do many other things that TravelTracker does so well. I use TripIt for quick access to info on the current trip, like hitting the rental car info with my big fat thumb as I dash away from baggage claim.

3. The Weather Channel Free

   As National Geographic puts it:

   [The Weather Channel app] gets the nod for customization and the ability to check out conditions in multiple locations at a glance.

4. AroundMe Free

   I admit it, Starbucks pwns me. AroundMe helps me quickly find that essential latte, or a local equivalent and other conveniences (ATM/bank, restaurant, pharmacy, retailer). I've tried coffee-specific apps and a few brand-name bank/retailer/restaurant finders. This particular app works well and seems current most places I go, and does away with having a slew of category/vendor-specifc apps.
   

5. Currency Free

   Fantastic currency converter that auto-updates exchange rates. Shows a purchase amount in multiple currencies of your choice at the same time. Easily switch from entering in one currency to entering in another. Very helpful on my trip to Singapore when trying to figure out what $5 USD was in SGD or what $900 SGD is in USD (answer: 1 nice watch).
   

6. Taxi Magic Free

   Great app for getting a taxi when you aren't in an urban center or near a taxi stand. It electronically hails a taxi and sends your current location to your choice of cab companies. You can even create an account & use it to pay for the ride, without using cash or credit in the cab. Cities supported include: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, LA, Minneapolis, Nashville, NYC, the OC, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, Dan Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington DC.

7. Urban Spoon Free

   The best way to break the logjam of “I dunno, where do you want to go.” Also nice to find something interesting & local instead of the shopping mall-perimeter chain restaurant defaults.

Then there are the airline superstars of iPhone web app-friendliness. The standout here is JetBlue, who has a very useful and colorful web app. Honorable mention to Southwest Airlines, who made great use of the very cool iUI iPhone templates found on Google Code.

To make the most of any of the web apps below, just visit the URL on your iPhone and then bookmark with the “Add to Home Screen” option.

Great iPhone web apps from airlines to add to your iPhone homescreen (actual iPhone/Touch home screen icons shown):

• JetBlue mobile http://mobile.jetblue.com/
• American Airlines mobile http://mobile.aa.com/
• Delta mobile http://mobile.delta.com/
• Southwest mobile http://mobile.southwest.com/

I heard back from @Alaska Airlines on twitter that Alaska is working on it. Go Alaska! No word from United Airlines on when http://ua.flightlookup.com will become more iPhone-aware. Sadly, the very-cool, but Flash-dependent site of Virgin America doesn't make the iPhone cut either (as of July 3, 2009). Btw, lots of airlines are on twitter, as I found out working on @AICC followers.

A Few Extra Travel-related Apps
Rounding-out my travel page I have Aeroguide Lite (Free) to recognize things like that rare Ilyushin Il-62 I once saw over SFO (an Il-62 looks like MD-80/DC-9 with 4 engines or a Vickers VC10).

Other miscellanneous items on the page include: Gas Cubby ($9.99) for recording and charting the MPG, etc. of my own car; FedEx Mobile (Free) for help with shipping; and Google Earth (Free) for miscellaneous mapping and geographical visualization.

The National Geographic Adventure List
To get more detailed information on their picks, please see Travel Tech: Top 20 iPhone Travel Apps from National Geographic Adventure. I've add my opinions to their list below where I had feelings one way or the other. For reference, here is their list:

1. Next Flight $2.99
2. Urban Spoon Free
3. HearPlanet reg $5.99 (on sale for $1.99 on July 3, 2009)
4. Air Sharing $4.99(Nix I say, get FTP On the Go)
5. Tweetie $2.99 (Nice, but nix say I. Get free TweetDeck or Twittelator Pro for $4.99, or both as I did)
6. IAmHere $0.99
7. World Customs $0.99
8. Wi-Fi Finder Free
9. The Weather Channel Free
10. Google Earth Free
11. Packing $1.99 (on sale for $0.99 on July 3, 2009. This one *I* might try)
12. Room Free
13. FlightTrack Pro $9.99 (Nix, I say, get TravelTracker w/TripIt)
14. Lonely Planet Phrasebook $9.99
15. Skype Free (I totally agree here–a very popular app, 4M downloads & estimated to be on 10%+ of iPhones)
16. WriteRoom $4.99
17. (Amazon) Kindle for iPhone Free (I totally agree here too)
18. Cheap Gas Free
19. Babelingo $3.99 (on sale for $1.99 on July 3, 2009)
20. Where Free

Labels: Apple, iPhone, technology, tips, tools, travel

Avoiding excessive charges is one key trick for International Travel with an iPhone. International travel can include a quick cruise to Mexico or the Caribbean, or a full-on international flight. Either way, some tips I've learned will save you money. I spent a week in Singapore and saved $60 over what the roaming rates would have totaled for data, SMS and calls.

Summary

• Get the free AT&T myWireless Mobile app. It is an easier way to manage the service add-ons.
• Get the free Skype app for iPhone. You can make cheap calls over WiFi, or even skip/miss a call to your iPhone number and then call right back using Skype.
• Skim the AT&T iPhone Tips for International Data Roamers from their web site.
• Be smart with call & SMS rates. 2-3 days before travel, activate the $5.99/month “AT&T World Traveler” for cheaper call & SMS rates.
• Be smart about 3G data. 2-3 days before travel, activate a “Data Global Add-On” for International Data roaming (20/50/100 MB for $24.99/$59.99/$119.99/$199.99)
• Turn off or dial-back SMS reminders from things like Twitter, etc. Do it a day or two early, there may be that one last service that sends a message and you can turn it off before you leave.
  Tip: I leave twitter Direct Messages on, so that colleagues traveling can reach me without using up their own SMS messages.
• Scout for WiFi options before you leave. Try Hotspot Locations or Ji-Wire Global Wi-Fi Finder. Remember to ask locals and check for more once you arrive.
• Delete or move what you can out of your IMAP email account Inbox. Having a smaller Inbox or putting messages in rarely used subfolders will reduce data updates.
• On your iPhone, use Settings>General>Network>Data Roaming to turn OFF Data Roaming before you board (airplane or ship; you can get hit with roaming data charges just walking between connecting flights with your phone on, or when a cruise ship sails out-of-range). Turn it on when you really want to connect for data.
• Turn off PUSH data services using Settings>Fetch New Data to select Push OFF. On the same screen, change Fetch to Manually (or if you really want updates, Hourly)
• Updated: Turn off less critical Notifications— they use data too.This includes Growl/Prowl if you use it.
• Reset the iPhone Usage Tracker to Zero using Settings>General>Usage>Reset. Check your data usage daily (consider an alarm or appointment for this).
  Tip: If you get close to the limit of your Data Plan, you can call well before you exceed it to upgrade to a plan with more capacity. (While traveling, call International Wireless Care at +1-916-843-4685).
• Wait 7-10 days after returning to deactivate your “Data Global Add-On” and “AT&T World Traveler” services add-ons. Though they are pro-rated for portions of a month, international billing can take a week and you don't want to be charged the higher rate.

More Details

Service Add-ons:
Use AT&T myWireless Mobile app to activate/deactivate additional services rather than calling AT&T. I recommend doing this at least 72 hours before you leave the USA.
Tip: When you activate the add-ons, immediately set an appointment or “To Do” to de-activate 10 days after you return. You'll save a few dollars that month since it is pro-rated, and won't accidentally carry-over the service into future months.

If you need to call or just prefer it, note that you'll need to make 2 calls. First call the regular service number (611 on mobile or 800-331-0500 from another phone). Second, call International Wireless Care at 800-335-4685 or if already abroad, +1-916-843-4685 to add your “Data Global Add-On” for International Data. Do this AT LEAST 72 hours before you leave; it can take 24 hours or more to activate.
Tip: Add “AT&T International” as a Contact with the 916 number above. You can quickly call for support or to update service.

“AT&T World Traveler” is just $5.99 a month and is pro-rated. It can save you $0.30 to $1.00 per minute on calls you receive (rates here). The cost of each SMS message can drop a similar amount. The gotcha is be sure to leave it active for ~10 days after your return. If there are delays in international billing you'll get hit with the higher rate if you already de-activated this add-on.

Regarding the “International Roaming- Data”- Pick a plan that suits your needs. I watch my data budget tightly and did fine with 20MB ($24.99) for a 6 day trip. I turn off “Data roaming” often and use WiFi where I can. I was ready to call and upgrade if needed though.
Tip: Before you travel, reset the iPhone Usage and watch it for a 2 days to see what your data budget might need to be.

Skype:
Buy in US dollars before you go (or stay in euros if your account is already in euros). Don't switch currencies on your Skype account; you'll get hit with a currency conversion charge. I started on Skype years ago when Euros were the only option. I'll only switch to US Dollars when my account is at zero.

WiFi:
72 hours before leaving the USA, Scout for WiFi. Check with the hotel or conference venue to see if WiFi is available. That can greatly reduce 3G data needs. It will also help you decide how large of a data plan to buy.
Tip: Check if the hotel has a frequent guest plan, many hotels offer free or reduced WiFi for frequent guests. Sign-up before you leave the US.

Data Misers:
Set a recurring alarm for “data off” (bedtime) and one for “data on” (wake). Toggle the Data Roaming setting accordingly. You can still get calls or use alarms, but won't be disturbed (or charged) for night-time email updates. Get them in a batch at a WiFi spot or when you turn on 3G data again.

Preload maps by searching for directions while at a WiFi spot. You can still get updates via 3G while out and about, but the larger map will already be downloaded.

SMS:
48 hours before leaving the USA, turn off or dial-back on SMS updates. Why 2 days before leaving? So you can catch that one extra service you forgot. Likely sources of SMS reminders to turn off are: Google Calendar, Jott, Remember the Milk, TripIt Premium, twitter.
Tip: Once you've established your new locale, do more than set the iPhone time zone. Also set your twitter time zone preferences to reflect your “do not disturb” hours for the new time zone.

Don't be surprised if you receive 1-2 SMS messages from AT&T as you travel. AT&T will alert you when you're in a roaming zone and you are not charged for those messages.

Labels: iPhone, tips

Once used on the iPhone, turning off MobileMe sync for bookmarks will result in deletion of all the bookmarks on the iPhone. Furthermore, there is no way to force the iPhone bookmarks to over-write things on the Mac if the sync ever goes awry.

If, like me, you ever end-up with the "good" bookmarks on the iPhone and "bad" on the Mac, there is just no way to sync the good over and replace the bad. However, one can do some tricks with the iPhone back-up preferences file (plist) and Mac Safari export/import bookmarks to achieve a transfer from iPhone to Mac. Once complete, two-way sync will be restored via iTunes. Unlike the MobileMe sync, you can turn off the iTunes bookmark sync to Safari without losing bookmarks on you iPhone.

I'm not responsible for lost data. Back-up everything before you start this process. Do NOT sync the iPhone until the process is complete. Others may have some shortcuts or improvements to this process [eg, convert Mobile Safari plist to Mac Safari plist instead, or use XSLT or shell script improvements, etc.]. I welcome those suggestions and will re-post them. Leave a comment or send email to me at mobilemind (at) pobox.com.

Here's how I managed to save my iPhone bookmarks, recover them to Mac, and switch off MobileMe bookmark sync without losing data. Now I just use iTunes for Bookmark sync.

1. Download iPhone / iPod Touch Backup Extractor by clicking on the big honking icon on that page. (I sent him $10 USD because it worked so well for me. Send him a few Euro if it works for you too.)

If your current back-up is questionable or to deliberately use an older version of iPhone bookmarks do the following. First make a copy of the current back-up, and put it in another location. Then use Time Machine or your back-up utility to find and restore a "good" previous version of the backup, from:

  ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

Remember that “~” is shorthand for the user home folder (Home icon in Finder, or Shift-Command-H).

3. Save the “iPhone OS Files” extract to a new folder, and find the Bookmarks preferences file. It should be in:
  newfolder/iPhone OS Files/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist

4. Convert the binary preferences file to XML. Open a terminal window and go to the folder with Bookmarks.plist. Then issue this command:

  plutil -convert xml1 Bookmarks.plist

Leave the terminal window open, you'll need it in a minute.

5. Open Mac Safari and do File > Export Bookmarks… to save a backup. We'll use this if anything goes wrong, and it's a handy reference example of the bookmark file format. I saved mine as “Safari Bookmarks.html” and put an extra copy in the same folder as “Bookmarks.plist”.

6. Get or make some shell magic with grep to reformat the XML plist preferences file into a rough approximation of a Mac Safari bookmarks import/export file. I found a great bit of code from Dave Taylor here.

I took Dave's example and removed some stuff like the sorting (more on that in a minute). Then I added the necessary opening and closing tags for a Bookmark file, with some comments. Here is my shell file for you to download: plist2bookmarks.sh

7. Save the shell script and make it executable. Save the shell file to the same folder as the converted Bookmarks.plist file. Then go to the terminal window and make it executable by you (the owner) and your group.

  chmod 774 plist2bookmarks.sh

8. Execute the script and direct the output to a new file. I called my output file "MobileSafariBookmarks.html" (no spaces to make the shell command easier).

  ./plist2bookmarks.sh >MobileSafariBookmarks.html

9. Clean-up the “MobileSafariBookmarks.html” in your favorite editor to make it match the folder hierarchy of your iPhone Bookmarks. I used Dreamweaver CS4 and TextMate to open my reference file ("Safari Bookmarks.html") and the new file ("MobileSafariBookmarks.html"), bouncing back & forth to make sure I got the tags right.

Have your iPhone handy to check the folder structure. That helped me as I did edits. The comments put in by “plist2bookmarks.sh” should help you understand how and where to create folders (or nest them).

Keep in mind that the iPhone has a few built-in bookmark folders and bookmarks, like the “History” folder and the bookmarks for “Yahoo!”, “Google”, “AT&T MyAccount”, and “iPhone User Guide”.

10. Prepare to import Mobile Safari Bookmarks into Mac Safari. Make sure you have a back-up of your Mac Safari bookmarks. Then open Safari, use Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks, and delete ONLY your bookmarks. Do NOT delete Address Book or other items. In m case, I selected Bookmarks Bar and deleted all the items there. Then I selected Bookmarks Menu and deleted all those items.

11. Import the Mobile Safari Bookmarks into Mac Safari. Use File > Import Bookmarks… to import “MobileSafariBookmarks.html” as cleaned-up in step 9.

12. Verify Mac Safari against Mobile Safari before you disable MobileMe sync of bookmarks. Remember, that will delete the iPhone bookmarks. Carefully check the list and URL addresses of the bookmarks now in Mac Safari against the list and structure in Mobile Safari on iPhone. Quit Safari on the Mac when you are done. Quit Mobile Safari on the iPhone too.

13. Take a deep breath and delete the bookmarks on Mobile Safari by disabling MobileMe sync of Bookmarks. On iPhone, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Then, under Accounts select your MobileMe account. Change Bookmarks to OFF. iPhone will warn you about deleting bookmarks. That is OK, because we now have them in Safari and will soon sync with iTunes from Mac Safari back to iPhone.

14. Disable iTunes automatic syncing for devices to allow us to make changes. Do not connect the iPhone yet. Start iTunes. Open Preferences and select Devices. Check the box that says "Disable automatic syncing for iPhones and iPods". Close Preferences.

15. Connect the iPhone and change iTunes to Sync Safari bookmarks. After the iPhone connects, it may sync anyway. That is OK. Select the iPhone in the left panel. Then select the tab labeled Info in the large main panel of iTunes. Scroll down to the shaded bar for Web Browser and check the box next to Sync Safari bookmarks.

16. Apply the change to sync. Click the Sync button in the lower right corner of iTunes and wait.

17. When the sync is done, all the bookmarks moved manually from the backup to Mac Safari, will be restored to the iPhone. From now on, the iPhone and Mac Safari will sync via iTunes. Changes on one will be reflected on the other after each sync. As an extra bonus, the MobileMe "push" should be a little shorter and a little less battery draining, since bookmarks are no longer synced over-the-air.

If you want, you can even turn off iTunes bookmark sync and add/restore your original Mac Safari bookmarks, either to keep things separate or to merge them back to iPhone later.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, technology, tips

The Elearning Events Calendar is updated with key elearning conferences and trade shows from January 2009 - June 2009. I didn't do a good job of updating it from August-December 2008, but I'll try to be better. If you are aware of a conference I missed, send an invite or email to events(at)mobilemind.net and I'll add it soon after I hear from you.

I've added events from AICC, ADL, Articulate, eLearning Guild, I/ITSEC, IMS Global, the Masie Center, Questionmark, SumTotal, Training Magazine, and more. I'll add links for the Plateau and Saba conferences when details become available (they are usually in Fall).

I also moved the calendar to a separate page to make it easier to read and navigate. The link to the new page is in the header navigation of my site as Events, as well as the first link in the opening paragraph of this post.

Happy New Year 2009.

Labels: elearning, events, tips

It'd be cool if there was a “geek work cribs” that showcased the preferred tools of geek celebs (and minor celebs). If there is, I don't know about it. Nonetheless, we all find posts and pages to that effect here and there. Recently, fellow geek (and elearning celeb) Aaron Silvers kindly posted a page-by-page list of what's on (and no longer on) his iPhone. There are some cool ways to do things like this that I'll share too.

First, get an account (or two) at iusethis.com, but do NOT populate it- yet.

• Mac OS X - http://osx.iusethis.com
• iPhone - http://iphone.iusethis.com

Next, get AppFresh, a Mac OS X application that helps you keep apps, widgets, preference panes and plugins up-to-date. Conveniently, it also connects to you iusethis account for Mac OS X. Run AppFresh, and it will create a list of your Mac apps and check for new version. Add your iusethisaccoutn via the AppFresh preferences.

Once the list is populated by AppFresh, you can easily click to add items to iusethis.com from AppFresh. Now you have a readily updated list that you can share as a page or RSS feed (see link at bottom of your apps or event page on the iusethis site).

The iPhone section of the site isn't quite as auto-magically updated. I'd love to see AppFresh or something like that scour your iTunes directory to populate such a list though (hint). Fortunately, the folks at iusethis do make it easy to find iPhone apps on their site or add your favorites while their forms pull in data from the iTunes App Store.

Now for the mobilemind iusethis lists:

• Mac OS X apps: http://osx.iusethis.com/user/mobilemind
  Recent changes: http://osx.iusethis.com/feed/mobilemind
  
• iPhone apps: http://iphone.iusethis.com/user/mobilemind
  Recent changes: http://iphone.iusethis.com/feed/mobilemind

Once you are signed up and sharing like this, iusethis will also identify like-minded neighbors by way of your application set. Note that the respective OS X and iPhone sites also have overall lists for New, Interesting and Top apps.

Hey Aaron are we iusethis neighbors? (PS- I too dropped Appigo To Do for the freeRemember the Milk app.) Poor Appigo, first To Do dropped for the free RTM app, and now AccuFuel has been replaced with the $4.99 Gas Cubby. All good apps, just a matter of preferences and $4-$5.

Labels: Apple, technology, tips, tools

Today I received a spammy-spoofy email that looked like it was from LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a service I trust and respect; it moved conscientiously and cautiously in the face(book) of pressure from multiple social networking sites.

As times get tight, it will be interesting to see what happens with social networks. The pessimist in me suspects that schemes and scams will increase, as well as sincere, legitimate requests for connections and job assistance from true friends.

I hope people will be supportive of their closest contacts and colleagues. Tim Sanders' Love Is the Killer App is a quick read and perhaps too touch-feely for some, but the premise is good— be open, trusting and giving with your social network.

As a social network, we can help stop abuse from scammers and schemers. Here is,

What I Did and you can do, too

1. Check the message title and source in email headers. (Yep, spoofed as L:inkedIn)
2. Check my own LinkedIn network and groups. (Did someone I know harvest names? Nope.)
3. Check the LinkedIn groups that I manage (AICC and LETSI). (Not a member; if so I would have bounced them out of the group. I will be monitoring these groups.)
4. Check Terms of Service. (No, this does not seem consistent with TOS.)
5. Report the abuse if any. (In this case, I turned on full headers and forwarded the email to abuse (AT) linkedin.com.)

The LinkedIn User Agreement is notable for a few key sections that I appreciated:

2. Your Rights — What You May Do
3. Our Rights and Obligations — What We Must And May Do
and
11. LinkedIn User DOs & DON’Ts

I'll be tracking this one, since this scammer is quasi-promoting LinkedIn, via their claim to be an expert on using LinkedIn for job-hunting and encourages its use. That seems to be a conflict of interest for LinkedIn. We'll see.

UPDATE November 21, 2008: LinkedIn got back to me on November 19, indicating they were investigating the spam. As of November 21, 2008 the alleged scammer/spammer is still on LinkedIn promoting their personal network of 2M “friends & colleagues” along with their skills in recruiting and life balance. Draw your own conclusions.

Meantime, there are plenty of ways to find experts on job-hunting with LinkedIn. We also all need to be aware of way Clay Shirky (author of Here Comes Everybody ) labels as a “failure of filters”– in social networks, emails, twitter and even blogs. I encourage others to filter actively and with fairness.

Social Network Terms of Service and Abuse Reporting

• Facebook: Terms of Use — Report Abuse (contact form)
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn User Agreement — abuse (AT) linkedin.com
• Plaxo: Terms of Service — abuse (AT) plaxo.com
• twitter: Terms of Service — Report Spam (contact form) or abuse (AT) twitter.com (unconfirmed)

Labels: rant, social networks, tips

Tom Kuhlmann of Articulate (and the consistently fantastic The Rapid Elearning Blog ) just posted: Is Google Making Our E-Learning Stupid? I love the phrase, the idea, and am certain the mere phrase resonates with everyone in the industry.

I might have taken the article in another direction, but, as always, Mr Kuhlmann makes it great, digestible and practical. He provides rapid elearning tips and approaches that transcend any specific tool (and apply to more than just rapid elearning). Bravo Tom.

Labels: learning, technology, tips

Here is a new utility web page to easily create javascript: bookmarks (bookmarklets) that paste a custom text string into a web page form in Mobile Safari on iPhone or iPod Touch– http://mobilemind.net/iphone.

On iPhone and Touch, that page will automatically re-direct to http://mobilemind.net/___, which includes all the instructions and code needed to make a bookmarklet that pastes text (an “iPastelet”).

On the iPhone/Touch, Save an iPastelet provides a form to enter your text string and a button to update the page URL. Then you need to save the bookmark, then immediately edit it to remove the http:// prefix and mobilemind URL. The directions on the page explain it all.

On desktop machines, the page does not re-direct, but instead takes you to the “classic” iPastelet Maker that I posted last December. The desktop browser version of iPasteletMaker creates a bookmarklet for you to save in your desktop browser (Mac or Win) and then sync to your device via iTunes.

This approach might be a little more handy if you already sync broswer bookmarks and want to create a bookmark Scrapbook folder with lots of these.

Thanks to Erica Sadun for the original bookmarklet code and inspiration. Special Thanks to Craig Hockenberry (IconFactory / Twitterific, Twitterific for iPhone), Joe Maller (Transmogrify), Joe Hewitt and the iUI team (http://code.google.com/p/iui/), and Ankur Kothari (Make the most of the iPhone SDK) for inspiration and examples.

Labels: Apple, technology, tips

I saw my friend Aaron twitter a question about this topic, so I thought I'd pull together a quick post with some resources for those with a Mac (and 1-2 for Mac or Win Firefox) and general tips. Briefly the tips are:

• Test using Safari with User Agent set to Mobile Safari
• Preview with iPhoney application for more context & rotation testing (add latest agent string)
• Use Firefox extensions User Agent Switcher, Web Developer and Firebug, and Firesizer
• Use iUI code with CSS/HTML/Javascript for iPhone-style interface
• Visit the Apple Web Apps Development Center and Apple iPhone Dev Center
• Check out the Google Groups iPhoneWebDev
• Register for iPhone DevCamp 2

Safari- Go to Preferences and check the box for Show Develop menu in menu bar.

Then you can use the menu Develop > User Agent > Mobile Safari 1.1.3 – iPhone. That will allow Safari to present itself to website (and your code) as the iPhone web browser. Hovering over a menu option will also display the full User Agent string.

iPhoney- iPhoney from MarketCircle is basically a shell around WebKit that acts like the iPhone browser, Mobile Safari. It does support rotation, but isn't exactly like iPhone (address bar can't scroll (but can be hidden), it does add vertical/horizontal scroll bars in some cases were iPhone wouldn't). That said, it is a nice way to get a quick "iPhone Preview" of any site from your laptop or desktop computer.

Tip: I found that I get more "iPhone-like" results with many sites by having iPhoney use a custom user-agent. The User Agent string below matches exactly what a web server sees for my iPhone user agent with the current firmware, whereas the iPhoney returns a slightly different version (Mobile/1A538a). Just use the appropriate menu item to enter the text below as "Custom User Agent".

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3

Switch User Agent- Firefox users (even those already using Firefox 3.0) can use the User Agent Switcher extension to also mimic the iPhone web browser user agent, with the same User Agent string as above.

Firefox extensions for Javascript development- While you're at it, you may also want to get a couple of other Firefox extension that are generally useful for web development– the Web Developer extension is from the same author as User Agent Switcher, and the latest Firebug extension beta release seems to work well with Firefox 3 (and help a lot with debugging). Firesizer isn't is compatible with Firefox 3 (yet) now, and it allows you to quickly switch Firefox to different screen sizes... helping you preview an iPhone sized window of (or even test other web sites & apps at common sizes like 1024x768).

iUI- iUI is set of CSS, HTML and Javascript that hails from Joe Hewitt of Facebook, who also originated Firebug. iUI is available from the Google code site, and includes code to provide a more iPhone-like look and feel to your web applications while providing the ability to handle page orientation changes (rotation between landscape & portrait views).

Apple Developer pages and Google Groups- There are a bunch of resources on the Apple site and there is an active iPhone Web Development Google Group too. Visit the Apple Web Apps Development Center and Apple iPhone Dev Center. Then check out the Google Groups iPhoneWebDev.

iPhoneDevCamp- Finally, there will be a second iPhoneDevCamp at the Adobe offices in San Francisco. It is scheduled for August 1-3 2008, and you should watch the official iPhoneDevCamp 2 website for more information.

Labels: Apple, Firefox-Thunderbird, technology, tips

Reading blogs has become a primary source of news for me. I sorely missed FeedDemon when I switched to Mac. Then I found about about NetNewsWire, but dawdled on buying it. Surprise, BOTH are now free. My favorite apps list just got bigger and free-er. I'll expand on the details of each below.

Feed readers make your blog reading more productive. Yes, I know about Bloglines and Google Reader (and other web-based readers), but these desktop readers are my preference for a few reasons. Those who live in the browser or bounce between machines may prefer web-hosted solutions. However, putting me in front of a browser, leaves me itching to hit a few favorite bookmarks, check AdSense, frequent flyer miles and other BBADD ideas (Browser-based Attention Deficit Disorder). Plus, lately I've been getting paranoid about having ALL my data at Google, so I spread the data to make the harvesting a little harder, even if that expands the password/identity hassles/risks.

The "fog of surfing" quickly crushes my plans for focused RSS raids in Firefox (apologies to Carl von Clausewitz). In contrast, I find that FeedDemon gives a comforting and quick "customized newspaper" my favorite feeds. NetNewsWire has a little different interface paradigm, but I can still sail through feed faster than plain surfing, Firefox Sage extension surfing or using Bloglines and succumbing to BBADD temptations.

UPDATE 1/11/07: Nick Bradbury himself discusses, Why Use a Desktop RSS Reader? (Note he does NOT make it a all-or-nothing argument like some).

Windows RSS Reader: FeedDemon now $0
FeedDemon comes from the genius of Nick Bradbury, who also developed the original HomeSite HTML editor. I bought FeedDemon years ago when he sold it directly. I've always loved the newspaper view and the innovative blog-search-results-feed. The search lets you create a "feed" that is the dynamic results of searching across blogs-- VERY handy when you want to stay on top of emerging news on a few related topics of interest.

Mac RSS Reader: NetNewsWire now $0
This one is a little newer to me, but I'm liking it a lot after 2 days of heavy use. NetNewsWire has the features you'd expect and a nice capability to open posts in either your preferred browser or the built-in browser. Opening things in the built-in browser reduces the clutter, while still letting you easily read the full-featured verison of the posts. Besides an nice Outlook-eque 3 panel view, the NetNewsWire browser pane also includes sharp, useful thumbnail views of each open "tab" of blog posts content.

Both readers really shine if you use the feature to clean-out infrequently read feeds (literally NetNewsWire "dinosaurs"). For further blog-reading productivity boosts, you can become a FeedDemon speed demon by applying the Inbox Zero techniques from the 43 Folders organizational site to RSS reading. I've tried it and it works great!

Speaking of BBADD behavior, have you seen the Gizmodo CES horseplay? I'm not sure I'd be proud of that.

Labels: blogs, technology, tips

Here is the promised new year follow-up with applications I really like and use.

Open source stuff [Windows & Mac]: Firefox 2, Flock, Thunderbird 2, FileZilla, and Audacity
All of those worked great on Windows and great on Mac. In 2004 when still using Windows for daily work, I dumped IE & Outlook and switched to Firefox and Thunderbird and have never regretted it. [OK, Calendaring needs work. Will Sunbird/Lightning ever break out like Thunderbird?]. In 2005, I even switched my wife's machine and my father-in-law to Firefox/Thunderbird. Works great, with no trouble for me or them. Soon, I'll blog about my favorite must-have Firefox extensions and Thunderbird extensions.

In 2007, these open source apps eased the transition to Mac. I just copied directories over and installed the Mac version and voila, it all worked. Well, I didn't bring Flock data over from the Windows machine-- I just installed it after Firefox and let it pick up my bookmarks from there.

With FileZilla, I did need to re-enter my servers and passwords, but I work with only a few FTP sites. However, all the application UI and workflow experience transfers back-and-forth just fine. Over time, I expect I'll go buy YummyFTP since it is incredibly fast, efficient and more Mac-integrated. In terms of features/version, Audacity lags a bit on the Mac, but it worked fine for my needs. TUAW recently posted a call for Mac developers and hopefully it will catch-up soon.

Finally, Flock turned out to be a great tool for blog surfing and blog writing and social surfing. It is especially strong with del.icio.us, Facebook, flickr, and ma.gnolia and twitter.

Password Managers [Windows, Palm, PocketPC]: Ilium eWallet $30
I used Ilium eWallet with Windows and a Palm V... then PocketPC... then a Treo. It worked great and provided a fantastic way to secure and manage tons of passwords, PINS, access codes and WPA codes. With the availability PocketPC and Palm applications and synchronization it also provided a way to securely access information on Windows or take-it with me.

Password Managers [Macintosh, iPhone]: 1Password $30
I ordered a MacBook Pro in May both to jump on the Switcher bandwagon and in anticipation of having a more iPhone-friendly platform. Much to my surprise, I came to love the Mac and abruptly ended my initial affair with the iPhone after 6 days. 1Password from Agile Web Solutions turned out to be both a password manager and the friend that helped reunite me with iPhone (OK Steve Jobs and a $200 price break helped too). 1Password manager is great because it secures data leveraging the Macintosh keychain system, works simultaneously across multiple browsers (Camino, Firefox, Flock, Safari), and syncs with the iPhone via a clever use of encryption with a Javascript bookmarklet that keeps your portable data secure.

XML, XSD and XSLT [Windows]: Altova XMLSpy $500
I would hate to do any XML heavy-lifting without the latest version of Altova XMLSpy. If you're going to make or edit XSD schema files or make or edit XSLT, just get it. Generally, the Professional version is recommended. I've never needed more, but I haven't worked with WSDL. The Altova site offers a confusing array of offerings, but just look for the basic version of Altova XMLSpy Professional [30 day trial here]. It is expensive, but well worth it.

Manipulating any sort of text file [Macintosh]: TextMate $60
TextMate sings with any sort of text file you can think of editing. Built-in bundles and extensibility make it fluent with everything from Actionscript to XML. It is a ninja at replacing, reformatting, realigning and re-anything with text-based content in a single file or across a multi-file project. Using Textmate I've munged .htaccess, Javascript, PHP, plain text, robots.txt, sitemap.xml and big gnarly text file hairballs of data, with preternatural alacrity. Be sure to check out the author's blog and the Textmate in Action screencasts for some great tips and speed editing demo's.

Blog writing [Windows]: w.bloggar [donationware]
w.bloggar on Windows was my favorite, but fell into disrepair by October 2006 (and didn't resurface until a year later). I have not used it since late 2006, but development seems to be on once again. The December 2007 update looks promising and I may pop it on a USB thumbdrive for some portable client-side blog editing on Windows Machines.

Blog writing [Macintosh]: Ecto $18
Ecto rocks! I've been using Ecto 3.0 since it went alpha and am very happy with it. Ecto offers round-trip editing with WYSIWYG and HTML source views. You'll find tons of handy features to paste URL links and automate entries. Ecto really shines if you contribute to 2 or more blogs, and want local editing, saving drafts, and automatic publishing. One cool feature I've come to appreciate is the way it automatically submits the post title and a TinyURL link to twitter

Sitemap Utilities [Macintosh]: Rage Google Sitemap Automator $30
If you're responsible for 2 or more public-facing websites with at least dozens of pages each, then get Rage Google Sitemap Automator now to improve your search engine optimization and indexing. It is rare for a niche need and a solution to exquisitely and harmoniously unite as a solution. Rage Google Sitemap Automator does just that and kicks asterisk. Point the Rage Sitemap Automator at your web site and it scours the bugger for every possible page that could be submitted to Google sitemaps or Yahoo Site Explorer. Then you can easily add filters to set the refresh frequency and priority of whole batches of those pages (or even exclude some). It is highly configurable letting you easily add extensions to exclude (or include), which came in very handy for adding pages with a ".pl" extension from a site that uses YaBB. Sitemap Automator also does more than typical sitemap generators by letting you easily make batch changes the sitemap without rescanning the whole site. If you're responsible for 2 or more public-facing websites with at least dozens of pages each, then it is well worth the $30 to get Rage Google Sitemap Automator [or at least use the trial version].

Labels: technology, tips

Year transitions mean two things in the media (and the blogosphere)– old year recaps and new year predictions. I predict that I will get to prognostications for 2008 in a future post. I also predict I will love these things in 2008. Meantime here are some great web tools/services I had the pleasure of using in 2007.

Jott
Call an 800 number and send a transcribed message via SMS text or email to your contacts or a group lists (or even twitter, tumblr, a blog or group, or remember the milk). Jott is fantastic for me. It is quite good at speech recognition for transcription, and Jott offers the option of including a link to original audio.

I stumbled on to this service via the task manager iGTD and a since-abandoned integration that allowed you to Jott to yourself and have to-do items automatically show-up sorted, classified, and scheduled in your task manager. Now I am thinking it will be a fine way to avoid entangling myself with the new 2008 Washington State Law against texting while driving. (I admit I've done this at stop lights and clogged-up off-ramps, but at freeway speeds or in moving traffic, txt'ing and driving is insane.) With Jott, you just speed dial an 800 number and speak what becomes that SMS saying/sending "I'm still stuck in traffic" message to an individual or group.

OpenDNS
Basically, OpenDNS runs a network of high-speed DNS servers. Things like MySpace pages and Facebook may call content from tens of different domains. Every millisecond needed to resolve each of those domains slows down the page loading. OpenDNS is free, fast and has nice instructions to setup a Windows or Mac computer to use it or even setup a router. SOHO or small business system administrators can also use it as a sort of filter to reduce phising scams, filter "adult" sites, provide some 'branding' for DNS errors and more. Simple to setup up, and for me, faster internet at home.

Plaxo
Yes, this former scourge has become indispensable. Remember when Plaxo seemed like a virus, always pinging you about someone who wanted you to update your contact info. All better now, they are much less invasive and more useful. I do contract work and my client has me using Outlook on equipment they provide. With Plaxo, I'm able to sync calendar and contacts between Outlook, Thunderbird, Google Calendar, Palm Contacts, Palm Calendar, and eventually Macintosh Address Book and iCal. and iPhone. I'm calling it a service, but in this case I also use Plaxo client add-ins for Outlook, Thunderbird and Address Book / iCal.

Pobox
Imagine having the same home email address for 10 years. I have had just that, despite using 3 different dial-up services, 2 cable companies and a DSL service. Pobox is a sort of email forwarder that gives you a stable address for receiving (and sending) email, no matter how many times you change the forwarding account where it ultimately lands to get read.

Can you also also imagine having 99%+ of your spam stopped at the server and never reaching your "real" address, during that entire time? Pobox does that too. The Pobox spam filter set is amazing-- it can be very automatic or let you fine tune the settings. It combines already powerful filters like Sender address verification, SPF, black hole listings, SpamCop, Cloudmark, HELO tests, and even region-based flagging and bouncing. Bouncing is great, it makes your pobox email look failed/dead to spammers. I used the basic service at $20/year for several years, but have upgraded to more expensive service for the last few years.

Family members have been happy with the $20-- even those "backending" it with Gmail (already excellent spam filtering), because they feel free to switch services anytime without having a forced address change. Me? I'm happy to have 7 inbound email addresses from 3 different domains filtering through Pobox to one forwarding account. I just did a report and in the last 30 days there where 0.001% false positives where mail was blocked that should not have been blocked. Meantime, I got 4 spam emails in the last 7 days, and see only 6 "possible spams" that were held and not bounced.

PublicVPN.com
I'm getting paranoid about WiFi hotspot security. PublicVPN gives me a nice no-fuss solution for securing transmission of personal data over public wireless (or wired) connections. I tactically purchased a 30 day subscription to cover time when I was going to be out-of-town at conferences. As my subscription approached expiration, I got a renewal notice offering 10% off. I deferred a bit and once again renewed to cover 2 more conferences. PublicVPN service worked great from St. Louis, Orlando, Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, San Jose and Seattle. When the next renewal notice (and discount offer) arrived, I re-upped for a full year at $55. It feels good to support a relatively local (Oregon) company and secure my data. All this without the hassle of adding VPN firmware to a Linux-based router and configuring/maintaining it, OR buying an expensive SOHO-solution.

Bunches of things Google
Google Search, obviously. But I've also benefited from and used Google Alerts, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google AdSense, Google Sitemaps (Webmaster tools), Google Analytics and Google Talk.

Hmm, that's a lot of my data. Can you see why I'm hesitant to jump on with Google Docs for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation. So far, online spreadsheet EditGrid (online spreadsheets) seems just fine and offers VERY iPhone-friendly version. Plus I'm not chained to Microsoft Office, and am really enjoying using Apple iWork '08 with Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets & light data, and Keynote for world-class presentation capabilities-- and all for a total investment of $80.

That reminds me...

Apple Quick Tip of the Week via web or iTunes
Short podcasts/video-podcasts (most are less than 1 minute) that give you easy-to-follow and very useful tips for Mac OS X and Apple software. <blockcomments>Jeff Burton</blockcomments>

Oops, looks like I squeezed in some references to applications. Seems like that could be a whole other post. Look for that one soon.

Labels: technology, tips

Here is a quick tip for Firefox: Enter Ctrl-L company Ctrl-Return. [Use Command-L and Command-Return on Mac.]
Bam! Firefox completes it as http://www.company.com and goes there.

Here is how it works. You use Control-L to automatically place the cursor in the URL address field and highlight all the text. Then type just the company name for a website (say "Amazon") and do a Control-Return.

Firefox completes it as http://www.amazon.com and goes there. This doesn't work for "non dot com" domains like .edu, .gov, .org etc. So I still have to fully type http://mobilemind.net for instance or start typing m-o-b-i-l... and use autocompleting when it finds a match.

This combination works great because the Open Location shortcut (Control-L or Command-L) does the effort-saving act of getting the cursor in the address bar ready for a new address, and the URL-entry + completion shortcut (Control-Return or Command-Return) skips the "Google-search + 'I feel lucky'" default behavior of entering just a word in the address bar. This combo also bypasses issues with proxy servers or use of the OpenDNS service, which might otherwise bring up some sort of results page to disambiguate your entry.

I now use this all the time. It saves fishing for the mouse to go to the address bar, and it is s a wonderfully handy speed combo when you're behind a proxy server on the corporate intranet or at a hotel hotspot. No mouse fishing and you avoid that disambiguation/search results page.

Labels: Firefox-Thunderbird, technology, tips