The Nokia Tablet

Within the last few hours Nokia has announced the 770, a Linux based Internet Tablet, complete with Bluetooth (v1.2) and Wi-fi (802.11b - slomo...). But, and this is a bit peculiar... there's no cellular connectivity option of any kind, i.e. there's no mobile phone.

According to MobileBurn Nokia "envisions the 770 as an inexpensive [...] and convenient replacement for the 2nd or 3rd PC a family might have at home."

I don't doubt that that's the case, but I wonder why Nokia would completely exclude its cellular knowledge from the 770. As a move in to a home/office market where VoIP rules, and most of us have a Bluetooth enabled phone, I guess it might make sense. But I still feel that Nokia missed an opportunity for a competetive advantage over other similar products.

The inclusion of a feed reader in the slim pre-installed software package makes the 770 useful as an "instantly on" piece of kit for most people. Wonder if it supports podcasting? It most certainly should. If not, well, that limits its appeal for more advanced users.

Still, I'm happy about these new and fairly surprising products, and product categories, that are popping up at the moment. PalmOne's dedication to "mobile managers", i.e. the LifeDrive, fits in this category. Companies are thinking outside their boxes a little bit. Fun fun.

Give me a week or so and I'll take a look at the 770 from a productivity point of view too.

Copyright © Nokia 2005

Penguin Palm?

Good story from CNET on PalmSource: Is Linux Palm's savior?

WordPress next?

We might start using WordPress. It's early days, and before you ask ;) Moveable Type is still in the running, but we'll probably go with WordPress. It works really well with our hosting co, a couple of our clients use it, some of our partners are (self confessed) WordPress gurus, etc etc.

Hicks on getting it done

It's funny, but my experience in looking for a "collection bucket" was very similar to Hicks'. Only difference is that I opted for Backpack instead of Basecamp.

Has anyone tried sproutliner? I'm testing it for a project I'm involved in and I'd love to hear some thoughts on it.

Getting Hicks done

Google gets personal

Google introduced personalized home pages yesterday. It probably is a "broadside aimed at MyYahoo" as CNET News puts it.

But honestly, the Big Purple has nothing to fear at this stage. To call the yet unnamed service basic is putting it mildly. Very few content options, and no details on when for example news stories were published.

One thing that the personalized home page does is offer people more of a reason to set Google as their home page. According to numbers at Charlene Li's blog less than 20% of people who use Google have the site set as their default home page. I'm sure Google will improve on the personalization options, but I was still expecting more from them. Especially if they want us to default google.com.

IE 7 gets tabs

MS IE will finally get tabbed browsing, years after other browsers. IE product unit manager Dean Hachamovitch: "Initially, we had some concerns around complexity and consistency--will it confuse users more than it benefits them? "

Answer: Oh please... There was never any risk of confusion, your users are smart.

At least he goes on to say that "...he thinks his company made the wrong decision on tabs--a decision he is happy to reverse." More

MS offers peek at next Office

Collaborate more with Office 12?

"The company is [...] talking about some broad areas that it sees as ripe for improvement, including enhanced collaboration." "[...]Microsoft is counting on advances from both its own SharePoint and Real-Time Communications groups as well as from recently acquired Groove Networks, which specializes in such software."

Microsoft offers peek at next Office suite | CNET News.com

Happiness is a LifeDrive

How excited am I about the 4GB, Wi-fi enabled LifeDrive? Very, VERY excited. Brighthand has more as the LifeDrive appears in Laptop Magazine.

"The rumors say that the next high-end model from palmOne will run Palm OS Garnet on a 416 MHz XScale processor."

Copyright © palmOne

Clusty

I'm testing Clusty, and I like it.

The "clustering engine" has a clever way of presenting search results to those of us who rarely go past the first page of our choosen search engine. Clusty simply displays a list of labeled folders to the left of the main results. Clever indeed.

Google is still my #1, but there will be times when I'll rely on Clusty. Try it.

Backpack goes mobile

I'm curious to hear what those who *thrashed* Backpack last week for its lack of mobile support think of this improvement.

"To celebrate the 1-week anniversary of Backpack, today we launch Backpack Mobile. Now you can get to your Backpack from wherever you are." More

Looking for a good cal

I'm still trying to find the perfect online (preferably syncable) calendar. Trumba is the best so far, AirSet did a good job of overwhelming me with floating windows *packed* with text and more text. Yahoo!'s offering is good for consumers, but it doesn't cut it for business purposes.

Next in line is the cal from Intranets.com.

I got talking to Josh Owens through a few posts over at Russell Beattie's blog this week. Turns out Ownes and his brother-in-law are working on a calendar project. Until they go live (or beta), do you have any suggestions? Drop me a line or post a comment (yepp, for once commenting is switched on).

Web Terminator?

Seems like Google's Web Accelerator has acted more like a web terminator.

"Google's effort to speed the pace of Web browsing quickly aggravated some early users, who say that the software is delivering them Web pages under other users' logins and breaking Web applications." eWeek

Jason from 37signals on the Web Accelerator and Backpack.

Updated 11 May: Google puts brakes on Accelerator | CNET News.com

CA State Parks get Wi-fi

Brilliant, I love it. Some people might ask "why?". I ask "why do you complain?". Why wouldn't you want to be able to, for example, find info on that interesting bug that just crawled in to your tent, or check what time the park closes, etc. Remember, it's not all about work.

"California State Parks [...] to install Wi-Fi links in 85 state parks over the next six months." More here."

Backpack is live

The people at 37signals continue to release brilliant web based software. After Basecamp HQ (5/5) and Ta-da (ok, not so great...2/5) the new kid on the sw block is the Backpack information manager.
Read what Jason Fried of 37Signals had to say about it last week.

Backpack was released today and can be found here.

Folksonomy

"There's a revolution going on in the art and science of categorization, and its name is folksonomy..."
A good article by Bruce Sterling from Wired 04/2005.

Housingmaps.com

This is one of the best implementations of Google Maps - heck, ANY online maps - that I have ever seen.

Housingmaps.com combines postings from Craigslist with Google Maps to show a map with houses and apartments for sale or to rent. Click on a balloon and instead of just the usual address info you normally get on Google Maps, you get the basic info on the property including the price, complete with thumbnail images. Brilliant!

The site was created by Paul Rademacher, a 30-year-old software developer from DreamWorks animation studio.