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Two great little aps for the Mac

This won't be too interesting for those of you who are PC users but I'm sure there might be similar utilities out there.

I love the software cottage industry that has developed around the use of computers. Those individuals who are using a computer in their daily life and go looking for a particular tool or functionality, can't find it so they build it themselves. As is often the case, there are also many of us out there who might also want the same functionality so we are happy to buy these little aps.

Of course what I'm describing here is a product that conforms to the characteristics set out by Chris Anderson in his great book, The Long Tail.

The two aps I've just bought, which I highly recommend are:

1. WriteRoom by Jesse Grosjean at HogBay Software. If you're like me you are inundated with information all day, every day. However, you still have "real" work to do. As Jesse says on his Web site,

"Walk into WriteRoom, and watch your distractions fade away. Now it's just you and your text. WriteRoom is a place where your mind clears and your work gets done. When your writing is complete, exit WriteRoom and re-enter the busy world with your work in hand."

A truly excellent tool.

2. MenuCalendarClock by Guido Neitzer and Peter Maurer at ObjectPark Software. This little iCal or Entourage plug-in sits in your menu bar. When you click on it it gives you your calendar with to-do's and schedule in a nice drop down menu. It means you don't have to have your primary calendar open all the time.

Another truly excellent tool.

Jawbone

My good friend Michael Kuhlmann turned me on to Jawbone yesterday. Like him I've tried every bluetooth headset known to man. Basically they've all be crap!

It's usually the ambient noise issue. I can't hear the person I'm talking to and they can't hear me. Michael gave me a demo and it worked exactly as this video shows. It's also a really nice design.

I'm off to pick one up tomorrow.

Cool Tools

This is a blog I've been reading for a while. It's a really nice change from the news/technology blogs I read for work.

I actually prefer it to Gizmodo. Check it out... Cool Tools!

Facebook

I got going on Facebook this week and it's been quite an experience. I'm late to the party as I was with Linkedin. You know how it is, you get lots of people asking you to join and you resist then you hit a "tipping point" and you head over and check it out.

That's what happened to me and I have been really impressed. I think it's actually a significant platform. It's a really great way to stay loosely in touch with friends and acquaintances. You can just track what people are up to and connect with them at those points where your worlds might intersect or when your friend has significant news.

I recommend it. If you haven't dived in yet give it a go. I think I'm here...

How true is this?

Here's a little story from Ewan MacLeod over at SMS Text News and how true this story is.

I know the very same thing has happened to me. But I have a even better one. When I first moved to Canada I went into a Telus Mobility Store (along with Bell, Telus operates a CDMA network) and asked about a RIM model. I commented that it was a shame that, at that particular time, it wasn't available on the GSM network.

Incredulously the salesperson told me that GSM was a declining network technology and that I could use my CDMA RIM wherever I went so I wouldn't need a GSM device. He might have been completely daft or maybe he was just trying to make his quota for the month.

Canada is a strange place for mobile services as Jeff over at Eqo has pointed out.

Bloody Excellent!

I found this via Andy Abramson's blog. I'm not a big fan of Andy but to give him his due, his knowledge in this space is extensive.

Anyway the subject at hand is Gaboogie. A truly excellent Web 2.0 flavoured conference calling application. When I was at Jajah one of the applications I liked most was scheduled calling. The team put this together with conference calling but quite frankly I don't think we/they ever pulled it off.

Gaboogie, on the other hand, really has pulled it off. A great example of focusing on a specific problem and delivering a beautiful application.

I see that Erik Lagerway is one of the founder's. This bodes well. Erik knows all things SIP. He was the founder of Xten. They were upstairs from us in Vancouver when I founded FatPort. It's funny I've had a lot of coincidences this weekend. More on that later.

Another nice feature is that they are a local Vancouver company. Get over there and give it a go. Good luck to them.

Technorati Tags:
JAJAH, Mobile, Vancouver, VoIP

Back at it...

I haven't blogged for a long time primarily because I didn't have much to say and because I was working on some stuff I couldn't talk about.

I still can't talk about some of the stuff I'm working on but I do have a whole bunch of things to say, so let's get started.

I like Jangl, it's a great little company that has lots of good ideas. However, after their announcement two things got me going.

(1) One of their new services; and this is how it works according to Matt Marshall on VentureBeat:

"First, let’s say you have only someone’s email address. You can enter their email address on the Jangl homepage, and Jangl will issue a new phone number to call. You call it, and leave a message. Jangl ties that message to the email you gave it, and forwards your voice message in an email (they click on a link to hear an audio message). It also issues a local number for you, so the recipient calls you back, again without having your real number. This saves money on International calls, because it’s done through VoIP. You can do the same with an IM address: Just plug that into Jangl, and it will let you leave a voice message for them via IM."

Am I completely stupid here and missing something? This sounds to me like a solution looking for a problem. So you've got someone's e-mail address and you're telling me that I'm going to go through this seven-step process to get in contact with them. You've got their e-mail address, just bloody e-mail them. There are no charges associated with international e-mail.

(2) And again from Matt Marshall:

"Here’s the tough part. There’s no clear way for the company to make money short-term. The company says it plans for mass adoption first. It will seek to make money by offering premium features or advertising, such as within the widgets, or within calls, but hasn’t made any decisions about this."

No shit, Sherlock!

Tour of California

The Tour of California starts tomorrow and if you're a cycling fan the chances are you're not going to be able to watch it -- and more importantly, many of the Spring Classics -- on TV.

If you want to watch any of this stuff then I recommend you head over to cycling.tv and sign up for a premium account. Be forewarned that the website is pretty ugly and it's not great if you're on a Mac but persevere. They're trying hard and doing a good job with limited resources.

Technorati Tags:
Cycling, Tour of California, TV

Lost on me again!

Boy oh boy!

Maybe I woke up a bit groggy this morning but here's another one that's lost on me.

Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners are investing $12 Million into Zlango. This outfit want to replace -- or to be fair, maybe supplement -- SMS language with a proprietary hieroglyphic.

It's a daft idea. It won't take off. It'll be a fad. That's it.

Technorati Tags:
Mobile, SMS

JAJAH Mobile Web

We launched JAJAH Mobile Web today. Want to know more? Check out the video, it's me on the voice over:

Technorati Tags:
JAJAH, Mobile, Nokia, Blackberry, Treo, Windows Mobile, Money