I just cancelled my basecamp subscription yesterday. In theory, it’s a good idea, a web-based project management solution. It’s nice looking and fairly functional. It didn’t do a few things I wanted it to do, like reminders and export to various formats. And, it was too expensive (22$) for how much I used it. The main problem with it was that none of my clients logged into it more than once. I would create an account they could use to track project status and they would log in the first time then never again. That’s not going to work, and I’m not going to hound anyone into using it.
Technology
12
Oct 05
Ooh Ahh: New Video iPod
Finally, an iPod I covet. The newest iPod supports video playback via the onboard display and tv-out. Now I’ll have a place to put all the episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Extras” I’ve been planning to watch. It is kinda sheisty of Apple to release this so soon after the Nano, which I’m sure many people bought. May be a good time to troll eBay for deals. This trumps everything else they’ve done thus far in my opinion, and I would actually consider paying $400 for something that had video playback, especially with the added benefit of tv output. The 60gb model is definitely the one to get. I could store all my mp3’s and a good portion of some of my videos on it. Tempting, so tempting. Must reign in impulse buying chemicals… delaying desire for awesome frivolous gadget…
Oh yeah, according to Waxy.org, ABC is currently offering episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives for sale via iTunes for $1.99 an episode.
Update: To my chagrin, I read the fine print. This is not a video iPod as such, just an iPod that can play video. To view video on the iPod it has to be in Quicktime. That means converting to their crappy copy-restricted video format. Bleh. I guess the recording industry is excited as the prospect of selling video singles though.
03
Oct 05
Yahoo leads Open Content Alliance
The goal: to scan and index books whose copyright has lapsed. The difference between the Open Content Alliance and Google is that the OCA will make the information scanned from books available to any search engine. They’re also starting with public domain books and material thus avoiding the lawsuits Google has encountered.
03
Oct 05
Attention Road Runner subscribers
Many Road Runner cable internet subscribers don’t realize they can check their email online via the Road Runner webmail interface. If you’re at work or somewhere else you can always check your email at: http://webmail.[roadrunner city subdomain name].rr.com. For example if you’re in Austin, the address would be http://webmail.austin.rr.com.
30
Sep 05
Good news for Nokia
Mobile device shipments nearly tripled across Europe in the first half of the year according to analysts Canalys. According to the company, volumes of smart phones and wireless handhelds rose 170 per cent year on year in EMEA to 9.6m. In comparison, Canalys claims that if you take out these ‘smart device’, basic mobile phone volumes only rose 11 per cent over the same period. At least one of the drivers of this phenomenon is simply that mobile phone upgrades are headed in this direction – most probably, a mobile phone user’s next handset will fall under the smartphone category, with the ability to receive email, surf the web and use other online data services.
Corporate spending is also fuelling the rise, with enterprises buying into the mobile email promise: some 80 per cent of enterprise shipments for mobile smartphones were for Nokia’s Series 60 keypad-based handsets. Its Series 80 range bought it another 13 per cent market share.
Of the wireless handhelds, the clear leader remains RIM on the manufacturer front, with a third of the market. But by platform, Windows Mobile is king and accounts for almost all the other devices shipped. Canalys
27
Sep 05
My BaseCamp Review
Project management is tough when you’re running your own business and trying to keep track of several different projects at once. I’ve used Outlook and it’s task request and calendaring functionality, but after syncing with services like Plaxo and duping all my appointments and tasklists I wanted something web-based so it would be available anywhere exactly the same. No more dupes, no more redundancy and confusion.
Now, I’ve toyed with project management software and groupware before, mainly in the form of free options like dotProject, but everything I’ve tried like that is so cluttered. As tight-fisted as I am, I am more than willing to pay for something I’ll actually use like ClientExec, for example. Since I read the Signal VS. Noise blog, I was somewhat familiar with BaseCamp and decided to give it a try.
In short here’s the good and the bad.
The good:
- The interface is very slick, clean, and Ajaxy. There are some nice drag and drop features and the overall look and feel is very pleasant and user friendly. One thing that was bad about dotProject was that it was just so clunky looking. This often the problem when engineering types design things that people need to use.
- It’s easy to keep various projects and people separate. Right now I have five separate projects going and each project has a different arrangement of people who can access each one. I certainly don’t want them to be able to view every project, just the ones that allow them access to.
- Projects have their own syndicated RSS feeds. This allows you to keep an eye on what’s going on as people login and close out tasks. The feeds are password protected for your security.
- You can see when people last logged in to check their messages and task list.
The bad:
- For what it does (task management, project management) it’s too expensive. Free options like dotProject have tons more functionality and cost nothing. I would venture that this service is geared to those without their own webhosting yet to use some of the advanced features like file uploads requires offsite ftp access, so that isn’t a good argument. I can’t justify why it’s so expensive. It really possesses a limited range of application.
- The only data export option is to XML. I want to be able to export my tasks, milestones, and contacts to Outlook or CSV.
- You cannot copy file entries, tasks, or messages into other projects. This sucks.
Verdict
If my clients and partners actually end up using this regularly I will keep it. It’s that simple. I have a hunch that email will continue to be the primary method of communication and tracking. After all, if someone wants to check to see if something has been completed they’re more likely to just email or call and ask me versus checking my online task list and milestone calendar. As long as they keep adding features I’ll consider renewing, but I have until the end of October to make that decision.
Here’s a little hack if you want to upgrade to one of the business-level accounts. If you sign-up for the basic paid account ($12 a month) and then upgrade to a higher level of service, they won’t actually bill you for the upgrade until the first month has gone by. So you basically get a free account upgrade for a month. That’s worth $12 at the very least.
14
Sep 05
Nokia as the new Blackberry
This will help launch Nokia into markets less dependent upon their hardware where they are seeing lots of competition and pricing pressure from rivals like Motorola:
Nokia Business Center, as the new e-mail system is to be known, seeks to bridge the gap between the world’s 650 million corporate e-mail accounts and the elite of about 10 million who have mobile access to their business e-mail inboxes.
The Finnish group, long expected to push into a market which brought success to Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry devices, said it wanted to make e-mail more cost-effective and available on a wider range of phones.
“We are trying to bring e-mail to the masses by taking it out of the realm of just CEOs and the highly paid sales force,” said Dave Grannan, head of Nokia’s e-mail business. …
“Nokia’s focus is much broader than that of RIM … it has intelligent networks which understand handsets, delivering services the user wants.
“Smartphones are not smartphones without the services from the network side,” he added.
Thirteen Nokia mobile devices will be certified to work on the e-mail system by the end of the year. But it would fall flat if it only worked on Nokia devices.
Grannan said Nokia planned to certify rival handsets to work with its e-mail system and in principle, any smartphone that runs Java technology can qualify.
Nokia would focus on certifying other high-volume Java mobile phones first, including models from Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
13
Sep 05
Now with Gravatar support!
If you leave a comment you’ll notice I have gravatars enabled. What is a gravatar?
A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an 80×80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?
Get a gravatar then leave a comment and try it out.
12
Sep 05
Ebay officially buys Skype
As a network that links many private buyers and sellers around the world, eBay already acts as a giant communications company, handling millions of emails a day, though it does not have a real-time communications network to let its users contact each other to agree deals or settle disputes immediately.
However, Skype’s business is far less developed than PayPal was at the time it was bought. PayPal had already gone public and was generating around $200m in annual revenue when eBay bought it.
Rajiv Dutta, eBay’s chief financial officer, said that Skype’s early success had exceeded even that of eBay and PayPal, both of which had been slower to turn their early users into fee-paying customers.
He added that eBay had assessed the purchase price based on a number of factors, including the expected future earnings from Skype, the valuation of other internet acquisitions and number of Skype users. Some 54m people have downloaded Skype’s software, making the price that eBay has paid for each user lower than the amount it paid for PayPal, Mr Dutta said.
06
Sep 05
Grading Google Desktop: B+
After using it for a couple weeks, I have found the latest iteration of Google Desktop to be moderately useful, but not essential by any means. It doesn’t wow like gmail. Considering that I use the search functionality infrequently Google Desktop must actually be useful for me to run it all the time since it is a resource hog. At this very moment, its components are sucking precious resources doing things of questionable value. GoogleDesktopDisplay.exe is using 76.5 MB of RAM, GoogleDesktopCrawl.exe is using 5.3 MB, GoogleDesktop.exe is using 1.7 MB, GoogleDesktopMail.exe is using 5 MB, and GoogleDesktopCrawl.exe is using 5.3 MB for a total of 93.8 MB of total RAM usage. Is that really necessary or does it have a memory leak? Here’s a rundown of the sidebar features:
- Docking – the sidebar docks to one side of your desktop. I liked this at first, but unless you use the sidebar a lot you’ll be tempted to shut it off.
- Gmail notification – This is somewhat useful except that there are Firefox extensions, Trillian plugins, and standalone Google apps that do the same thing.
- Web clips – I have yet to use this feature. I still don’t understand where or how it determines what to put in there.
- Todo list – This is a good idea, except in practice I put a few todos and then they just sit there. I use Outlook for task tracking if I use any software.
- Scratch pad – I still use paper to take little notes, but the Google Scratch Pad has the nice ability to save to a file. I have the same problem with this as with the todo list. I make notes then never do anything with them.
- Quick view – I have yet to make good use of this.
- News – Sage for news, so no chance to put this to good use.
- Photos – Very neat. Useful maybe.
- Stock ticker – Very useful. Nice and simple.
- Weather – Useful, but you could use the Weatherfox Firefox plugin to do the same thing.
The best part about the sidebar is that they have adopted the Firefox / Trillian model of opening up the plugin architecture so that end-users can develop their own extensions and plugins. The integration with Desktop search is a bonus.