Archive for November, 2006
My buddy David Henderson wrote a very interesting post about context aggregation. David is a smart dude and has lots of great ideas. Although, sometimes his thoughts are too visionary (he is two steps ahead of most of us)… I like to think of David as Boulder’s version of Steve Gillmor (and yes that’s a complement David).
Anyway, I think David is spot on here. And ironically this ties in with a post I recently wrote about a renewed relevance of the desktop.  In that post, I predicted a future trend where computing moves away from the silos (web 2.0) & back o the edges (the desktop) in the next few years.
If I am going to have some agent acting on my behalf that is collecting my attention data and it needs to know about ALL my interactions… guess where it HAS to live. Yep, on the desktop. Oh, and guess what else… I am spending less and less time in the browser and more and more in my aggregator clients. Now all my relevance data may sync via the network, but that bad boy agent needs to be where I am at all times and that is not at some Google web farm it is on my computer!
By the way, I don’t like the Intelligence Amplification name for this gesture either. The play on AI is kinda cool and the meaning is there, but the name is just not sticking with me at all… I have to keep going back to Brad’s post to recall the name and my Mom’s head would spin around that for a while.  Oh, and I know 99.9% of folks disliked the name Web 2.0, but it sure was/is sticky and isn’t that a good thing?  Hearing ”Web 2.0″ may grit in my ears now, but if it penetrates the masses this is a good thing for our industry.
November 29th, 2006
For some time the NewsGator mobile team has been working with the great folks from Free Range Communications to build a mobile RSS reader that targets J2ME devices. This has been a very challenging task given the number and diversity of J2ME devices and the complexity in building a robust and scalable mobile RSS reader. Today, I am psyched to announce the public beta of the product.
If you have a Java enabled device and would like to kick the tires, point your browser at
http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLMobileJ2MEBeta.aspx and grab the latest build. You will need to have a NewsGator account to play, and you can do that here and it is FREE.
Many of today’s mobile devices support Java applications, and we see NewsGator Go! for J2ME as an excellent extension of our product suite. NewsGator Go! is a great way to consume your news and information while you are on the move – at any time and at any place. That is very cool and very compelling.
So, please take a look at NewsGator Go! for J2ME and let us know what you think. You can send all feedback to the NewsGator forum.
Here is a list of known supported devices an updated list of supported cell phones (the original list was not correct), but if your device is not on the list, please still feel free to give Go! a try and let us know how it behaves:
- Blackberry (version 4.0 and up)
- Sony Ericsson phones
- Non-Motorola MID-P 2.0 phones
- - Currently selling Nokia (and most within the last year (just not
- MIDP 1.0 phones)
- - All others MID-P 2.0 phones (Samsung, Sanyo, LG, etc)
Oh, if you have a Windows Mobile device, the preferred option is to use NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile.
Thanks for taking a look and most of all I hope you enjoy the mobile RSS experience!
November 28th, 2006
The next version of NewsGator Go! will have full media support for enclosures/podcasts! Now you can listen to Steve Gillmor and the troops at the gym, Jason Calacanis while walking the dog, Adam Curry while commuting to work, or Coverville while jogging. Ah, life is very good for those who have NewsGator Go! and a Windows Mobile device.
This is so cool!
First you will want to get an external storage card. I use a 512 MB mini SD card. And then the flow inside NewsGator Go! will go like this:
1. Set Go’s data location to your storage card:
2. All feeds that have enclosure will have a cool looking green icon to indicate there is media goodness inside:
3. You will be able to start/stop each enclosure within a feed with one press. Also, each download is on a separate thread so the user interface is not interrupted (i.e., you can still perform other actions in Go! while downloading). And yes all downloads are resumable! If you drop a connection in the middle of a download, Go! will pick up right where it left off:
4. When the download is complete, you can quickly launch the default player:
5. I am also looking at creating play lists on the fly to keep your podcasts manageable.
Did I say this is so cool! What do I need my PC for? Right, I gotta write the code there 
November 27th, 2006
Not really, but I can make some predictions about technology…
While I was on vacation with the family up in Summit County, I got to watch one of my favorite Christmas movies. It was pretty cold outside with some flurries blowing around, and we had a nice little fire going. I was huddled up with the kiddos watching “Santa Claus is Coming to Townâ€.
My favorite character is the Winter Warlock… that dude is cool . Winter has this tough exterior but is just a softie on the inside – reminds me a lot of folks I know in the real world. After righting his wrongs, Winter pulls a trick out of his bag and hands it off to Chris Cringle. That trick affords Chris the ability to roll up a snowball and peek into the lives of all those naughty kids.
In the spirit of my buddy Winter and the ’07 predictions that are soon to come, I will do my best to peek into my foggy crystal techno ball. But I am going to skip 2007 cause that’s too easy; I will jump into 2008. In 2008, we will see a resurgence of the desktop. That’s right the desktop lives again!
But, we are now seeing a big push to “port†desktop apps to the Web. Even Google is doing this (Writely, JotSpot, etc) and MSFT seems to be putting a lot of effort into the wep app space with Windows Live (see the Personalize Page link). This must be where technology is headed – onto the Web and the desktop is toast you say? I say maybe not!
In 2007 we will certainly see more desktop apps find their way onto the Web, but in 2008 we will begin to turn back the clock and see the rise of the desktop once again. Here is why:
1. Blazing network speeds into the home
2. Cheap processing power in the home
3. Cheap storage in the home
4. Peer to Peer technologies
5. Distributed applications on the edges
6. IPV6 – this is BIG
7. Amazing user experiences with Vista
8. AND applications that leverage all the above
Most developers will be busy in the coming months doing the desktop to web porting thing, but some enterprising developers will recognize the power of 1-7 above and will build some revolutionary apps. A little over a year ago, I built a prototype that demonstrates all this goodness. I may need to dust this code off and show at a future Boulder Technology Meetup for someone to pickup.
Oh, and 4-6 years after that, we will see another push to get applications off the edges and back to centralized servers just because we can… And one more thing, in 2008 mobile will be even better 
November 27th, 2006
GPS fix that is…Â
I have a Pharos bluetooth GPS receiver and was trying to get it talking to my Windows Mobile smartphone (Audiovox SMT 5600). After some mucking around, I was able to get the setup working. This is a very powerful combination and I can see some pretty cool applications that leverage this combo. Here are the steps I had to take to make this function:
1. Go to Start | Settings |  Bluetooth and select Bluetooth
2. Now, you need to turn bluetooth on and pair your phone and bluetooth GPS receiver. Select Menu | Devices:
3. Select New:
4. Pick your GPS device from the list and press Select:
5. Enter the passkey. For my GPS receiver the default setting was 12345678 – check out your GPS receiver’s documentation to get the proper passkey:
6. You’re not done yet; you have to associate a COM port for the GPS receiver. Back on the main bluetooth screen, select COM Ports:
7. Select New Outgoing Port:
8. Select your GPS receiver from the list and select an available COM port. In my case I am using COM6 and I also unchecked the secure connection option (this is the COM port that third party apps will use to access the GPS data):
 
Again, this process is for an Audiovox SMT 5600 and Pharos bluetooth GPS receiver… for different flavors of devices, the process may be slightly different, but I hope this helps.
November 26th, 2006
I was just unwinding after a big Thanksgiving dinner up in Summit County. With the kiddos sound asleep and with little blog action to consume, I was sort of tuning into the Broncos game.  A slick commercial popped and grabbed my attention; it was an ad for the new Blackjack.Â
The Blackjack is a Windows Mobile phone from Cingular that has lots of style and the commercial is pretty sweet. Microsoft is finally starting to get it wrt to the consumer space. If Windows Mobile owns the consumer space, the enterprise will be easy to win over; the reverse is not the case.
This is a good move for Windows Mobile – the cool kids and sweet guys will dig this phone! I dig this phone.
November 23rd, 2006
I was just poking around in Firefox with me.dium running of course… if you haven’t checked out me.dium, please do – great folks and great technology.
Anyway, I saw something interesting. If you know Brad Feld, you know that he seems to get more things accomplished than any mortal can comprehend. I now know how he gets it done. I have seen the future as well… Brad has figured out how to clone himself. Check out the me.dium screenshot below. Okay, maybe he just has a few Firefox windows open… but I like to think big & outside the box
November 19th, 2006
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