They say that the third time’s the charm, but I don’t know if I would apply that to the third WordCamp conference in San Francisco that took place today. While it may partially have been that maybe I’ve gotten a little bit used to it, now that I’ve been there a few times, a lot of changes happened this year that I didn’t really think were that much for the better. And so my analysis and recap of this year’s WordPress event begins…
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Tags: 2008, Automattic, BarCAmp, Blogging, conference, event, rant, San Francisco, WordCamp, WordPress

About a month ago, I attended a BarCamp-style conference in San Francisco all about social media, and at the beginning of the conference, everyone was asked to introduce themselves and share what their favorite social networking site was–by far, the most frequent response was Twitter. Indeed, Twitter may very likely become one of the great wonders of the world. Who would have thought that a service that dubs itself as nothing more than a way to answer the eternal question, “What are you doing?” would turn out to be as addictive as it has proven to be. As the proud owner of over 4500 tweets since the end of January 2007, I oughta know.

In my opinion, the real reason that Twitter has been successful (despite the fact that its reputation for reliability is the same as, if not worse than, that of MobileMe) is because it’s the first product that fills a real niche in our lives. All of us, particularly myself included, have an inner urge to share certain tidbits of our lives–just to get them out there, whether or not people are even going to care about them. Tweets don’t have to just be about things that we are doing, but often contain things that we are feeling at a particular time. They’re inspired by the moment. For example, a month ago, on July 14th, I pulled up to my local Apple Store to the point where I was surprised to find a long, snaking, around-the-block line for the iPhone 3G–a full three and a half days after the thing first became available! I thought that the situation was just visually hilarious, and I thought of just so many things that could be said to make fun of it, so just to get it out of my head, I sat myself on the park bench outside of the store, cracked open my laptop with the store’s free wifi, and churned away about a dozen tweets on how crazy the situation was.
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Tags: blog, Blogging, Personal, thoughts, tweets, Twitter

When the App Store first launched almost a month ago, I must say, I thought that it would be a great thing. Not only were iPhones and iPod touches opened up to have third-party apps available on them, but they would be available in one centralized location to make it easy for users to get these apps, and the fact that handle was handling distribution in its own store meant that little, smaller developers could have just as much of an entry into the iPhone app market as the big boys.

But now, it appears that the latter part of that belief was not true, as the more I’ve been reading about the developers’ side of the App Store, the more I’ve not been liking it.
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Tags: App Store, Apple, authors, developers, iPhone, iPod touch, iTunes, MOD Database, MOD Team, phpBB, problems, Software, suggestions

I’ve recently been converted.

No, I’m not talking about religion here. (Who knows why I would ever want to blog about religion, anyway!) I’m actually talking about something much more relevant to most of us in this day and age: e-mail.

I’m sure that many and relate themselves to me when I talk about how, during the past school year, I really didn’t do much to keep my e-mail under control, and I found myself having an inbox full of stuff dating all the way back to last September. By the end of June, I had over 1500 messages in my inbox, and I didn’t even remember what most of it was.

Well, one of my goals this summer was to get my life better organized (both in the real world and the computer world), and e-mail was certainly a major target for getting my life back in order. And lo and behold, I found my inspiration in the July 2008 issue of Macworld, which featured a three-part article by Joe Kissell called Empty Your Inbox (part 1, part 2, part 3), which was heavily based on the Inbox Zero philosophy by Merlin Mann. I delved into the Macworld article, Merlin’s video presentation and Merlin’s own set of blog articles surrounding this novel idea of getting your inbox down to nothing.

And after reading and watching, surprising as though it may seem, I’ve successfully implemented Inbox Zero into my life this past month, and now could hardly imagine going back to letting my inbox fill up. (I’m still going through the last few transitional growing pains of adjusting to a new paradigm for my e-mail, but a lot of this stuff is finally starting to become instinctive.)

While you can go check out this info for yourself, here’s my summary of what Inbox Zero is all about, and how it works.
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Tags: data detectors, e-mail, inbox, Inbox Zero, Macworld, Mail, Merlin Mann, OmniFocus, organization

When Apple announced MobileMe back in June and announced that it would be replacing .Mac with a far superior service, I for one was excited. At last, .Mac/MobileMe was actually worth something. (I still think $99/year is a bit pricey, but I’m willing to live with that here.) In fact, if I wasn’t doing all of my stuff from one single computer, if I had one of Apple’s handheld devices, and if I actually had money to spend, I would have purchased MobileMe the very first day.

Boy, am I glad that I’m dirt poor right now.

As completely strange as it might seem, it appears that Apple has flubbed up MobileMe in every conceivable way these past few weeks. Take first the fact that it took about three times as long for the .Mac-to-MobileMe transition to take place (leaving many many .Mac users without any access to vital .Mac services that they needed for a few days), then throw in the whole ongoing fiasco with the so-called “1%” who lost use of their e-mail and actually lost a few days worth of their e-mail in the process. Many of these people weren’t even people who signed up for MobileMe, they signed up for .Mac, and were not expecting MobileMe to happen or for them to have to go through this. I mean, I can see something like this happening to a free service, but when Apple is getting $99/year from these people, that’s pretty ridiculous. Plus the fact that Apple was completely tight-lipped about this for nearly a week says some pretty bad things about how Apple handles its services and its customers.

Now, today, it turns up that Apple is limiting support to those people who were part of that 1%, and only people whom Apple thinks was on that 1%, according to TUAW. I mean, for the love of Pete, has Apple considered that other people may have other problems with MobileMe too? Just this morning, my friend Daniel Brusilovsky was trying to get support through one of those online live support things. After just saying “hi” to the support representative before even having a chance to type his question, the support guy said “Sorry, I can’t help you with this issue, I can only help with MobileMe Mail,” and closed the chat connection. What gives?

Apple, I know that you’re all big and successful now with all of the Macs, iPods, and (now) iPhones you’re selling, but it appears you’re starting to let that go to your head. If you want to be able to rebuild the already-ruined reputation that MobileMe has garnered, you’re going to have to do a lot more things correctly, and you’re going to have to start with the way you treat your paying customers. Otherwise, I’m not giving you a single blood-red penny.

Tags: Apple, e-mail, Mac, MobileMe, outage, reputation, ripoff, support

I’m currently writing this blog post on an iPod touch at my local Apple Store, thanks to the WordPress App for the iPhone/iPod touch. Writing on this onscreen keyboard is still a little bit clunky, but I’m certainly doing it faster now than I was doing when I first picked up an iPhone here a year ago.

As i’m sure many of my readers are aware, I’ve been a very longtime holdout when it comes to iPods and iPhones. In fact, as I described in a recent blog post (boy, I wish this thing had a way to let me copy and paste links), my opinion of the iPods (including the touch) has been that they pretty much didn’t do anything that I couldn’t already do on my laptop. True, these things ate more mobile, but just how many of the mobile features that these things offered did I really need to have with me when my laptop was not handy?

But now this darned thing called the App Store is out. Not only has it wowed certain influential tech reviewers like David Pogue (if you haven’t seen his latest video about the App Store, you’re missing out on something GREAT), but it’s even making me take another look at these pocket-sized wonders.

Twitterriffic is certainly one of those Mac apps that has ported over very nicely to the iPhone/iPod touch, but it actually extends the ability of Twitter to reflect what you are actually doing. After all, most if us certainly don’t spend every moment of the day doing things just in the computer, so for Twitter to realize its full potential, it has to be the kind of service that can go mobile. I’ve had the chance to try Twitterrific on the iPod touch, and it has really felt like a nice transformation from its beautifully-simplistic interface on the Mac to an equally beautiful and simplistic interface on the touch. I could easily see it making me 50% more active on Twitter.

WordPress, the app that I am using right now to write this blog post, is also a very interesting examplenof what’s possible. After downloading this app onto here, all I had to do was enter the URL of my blog along with the username and password for my WordPress admin panel and boom, I was in my admin via the app with the ability to edit my past posts or write a new one, like I’m doing now. I could totally see using this to write a brief blog post from somewhere, although maybe not a really long one like I’m doing now.

1Password has not yet gotten their iPhone version out yet, but after seeing the preview that they posted on their blog, it’s another app I’m quite interested in. One of it’s abilities is supposed to be allowing you to generate super-tough and super-safe passwords, but I’ve been a bit slow at getting many of my passwords safe because I wouldn’t remember them if I needed to login from somewhere else and didn’t have 1Password there to autofill the info for me. Between having 1Password on the iPhone/iPod touch and the my1Password service, however, both of which are coming up soon, I could really have a nice solution for keeping track of my passwords and keeping them secure.

OmniFocus for the iPhone/iPod touch, however, has GOT to be the deal-clincher for me. Since I bought the Mac version at Macworld in January, I’ve been working on adopting OmniFocus and getting used to using it to help me organize the various tasks surrounding my life (and try to reduce stress as well). The problem, however, is that it lives on my computer, which I don’t have with me at places like school and other places where I really need to have it handy to add actions to (as well as reminding me of what actions I need to get done). OmniFocus for iPhone/iPod touch, however, would eliminate that problem by letting me have my OmniFocus lists with me to get to, and let me sync them with the ones on my computer. Add in those awesome mobile-only features like location-aware contexts, and it’s about time to put the “Slippery With Drool” signs out.

While I’m still not interested in the iPhone (unless someone wants to donate the $70/month AT&T plan to me, since I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford that and don’t like AT&T anyway), I’m starting to show a bit of interest in the iPod touch for the first time. It may have just been a touchscreen wifi media player when it first came out, but now, thanks to the App Store, I’m convinced that it’s the best PDA out there, and one that I’m really getting interested in. However, I’ll keep waliting until Apple releases their next line of iPods (likely this fall) until I start saving.

P.S. Do yourself a favor to maintain your sanity. Don’t write a post as long as this on an iPhone or iPod touch. It takes too much patience.

Tags: 1Password, App Store, Apple, applications, iPhone, iPod touch, OmniFocus, Twitter, Twitterriffic, WordPress

Well, the iPhone 3G release is just days away now, yet for some reason, the hype doesn’t seem as awe-inspiring as last year’s did. Which is quite surprising, given that right after I watched Steve Jobs’ keynote last month, my thought on the new iPhone and the 50% price reduction was, “At last, Apple finally got the iPhone right.” And that’s a big statement coming from me, as someone fully certified as being immune to Uncle Steve’s Reality Distortion Field. But yet, in the past month, many revelations have come out to smash Apple’s party, and most of them from the cell carriers, the gatekeepers needed to allow the iPhone to function.

In the post I made yesterday on MacFocus Magazine I ranted about cell phone carriers and how they hinder the iPhone, which has been more than clear in the past month. Even ignoring how other cell carriers are screwing would-be iPhone customers (I’m looking at you, Rogers), the iPhone 3G comes with plenty more strings attached. I could start with the basic craziness of charging an extra $10/month for the 3G service for the iPhone, which not only eliminates the iPhone’s $200 price drop, it actually makes the total cost of the iPhone more expensive. I could then go to the unexplained reason for the iPhone no longer being activated in iTunes. Not only does it take one of my favorite attributes of the old iPhone and throw it out the signature-free window, but it’s going to make the already ridiculously-crowded Apple Stores much worse and cause people the hassle of having to go through all the usual cell phone heck. (Plus, not having an online option is going to mess it up for the people who don’t live near an Apple or AT&T Store; are people going to have to make iPhone pilgrimages now?)

Oh, and it’s nice that AT&T will finally offer an contract-free option (note how AT&T didn’t say “unlocked” anywhere) for the iPhone, but putting it at a $400 surcharge, plus tax, is ridiculous! It would be smarter to buy the iPhone for $200 or $300 (instead of $600 or $700), sign the contract, pay for one month of service, then cancel and pay the $175 early termination fee on the contract. By my math, that would save you over $150 over the contract-free option. And why exactly can’t the iPhone be activated with GoPhone pay-as-you-go yet?

That’s why I’m still not interested in an iPhone. The phone itself is nice, and finally is something I would desire except for it having to go through AT&T under a two-year contract at a substantial monthly fee. No thanks, I’m not that desperate to go mobile.

The alternative would be the iPod touch, which thanks to its imminent App Store upgrade will finally become the best non-cell phone PDA out there. (Palm originally beat it in my opinion by having open access to applications that actually did things, but now the iPod touch has that too, and with far better quality.) The only main differences now between the iPhone 3G and the iPod touch are the phone part, the lack of GPS (though the iPod touch still has the somewhat-less-accurate Skyhook function, but even the original iPhone didn’t have that), and–oh yeah, the ability to be online without access to a wifi hotspot.

See, that’s my one remaining issue here. Yes, the iPhone has the ability to be online wherever there is a good cell connection, while the iPod touch is restricted to just wifi networks. At that point, wouldn’t it just be smarter to rely on my laptop instead, since it also can only connect to the internet at wifi hotspots? Besides that, at present, the iPod touch (which clearly has less functionality) is $100 more than the iPhone. Granted, the iPod touch doesn’t have to be hindered by a service plan, but it does make one wonder if Apple isn’t planning to up the specs on the iPod touch this fall.

I have never been interested in an iPod because I’ve always said that I’m satisfied with listening to iTunes on my computer, and don’t really need my music elsewhere in most cases (except maybe a 12 hour flight, which I don’t do very often). I’m not strongly interested in an iPod touch, because it pretty much has the same, if not less, functionality of my MacBook, albeit in a smaller form factor and a different interface. I might be interested in the iPhone, since it does have a few tricks that my computer doesn’t, except for it being connected to AT&T and therefore being far more expensive than I could ever hope to afford in my current position thanks to that darned service plan crap.

What exactly is the place of these pocket-sized devices in my life? They may be more attractive to me than they were a few years ago, but Steve Jobs is going to have to full just a few more tricks out of his hat before I’m in the mood for one of these iDevices.

Tags: activation, AT&T, carriers, devices, dilemma, iPhone, iPod touch, laptop, rant, rate plans, services

Twitter is down (so what’s new?), so I guess that means that I’m going to have to blog my outrage to the news that a judge ordered YouTube to give its user data to Viacom. All this in the midst of the $1 billion lawsuit that forced Stephen Colbert off of the ‘Tube, made Google wish it had never thought of acquiring the video sharing service, sparked one of the major reasons for the recent writer’s strike, and now led into yet the latest infringement of internet privacy.

First off, what is Viacom’s problem? Why can’t they just do what the other major networks have done and partner up with YouTube! For Pete’s sake, I can already watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report IN FULL on their own website with almost no ads, why are they making such a big deal over YouTube?

But what really makes no sense is why Viacom even needs to see the complete records of every single video ever watched on YouTube, complete with username, IP address, and time watched (which must be millions of pages long, I would imagine), along with copies of every video ever removed from YouTube. That’s not copyright infringement, that’s privacy infringement. It shouldn’t be any of Viacom’s business how many times I watch three guys sing about their missing legwarmers or a tomato and a cucumber sing about the difference between a monkey and an ape.

But while those examples may be somewhat humorous and intentionally revealing, internet privacy is quite serious and has affected lives. The article I linked to gave an example of someone who was sent to a concentration camp because Yahoo! was forced to give up information to the Chinese government.

The judge at this case dismissed Google’s concerns over privacy as “speculative.” Well, I may not be a lawyer, and I’m certainly not one to gamble, I’d be more than willing to speculate that this is going to set a very, very bad precedent for the privacy of the internet as we’ve come to know it. I do hope that someone rules this to be illegal, and if not, then there had better be some sort of internet outcry, because this is just wrong and immoral.

Tags: court, Google, judge, privacy, ruling, Viacom, Videos, YouTube

I was at a rally in Sacramento (California’s state capitol) today with the California State PTA, who was there protesting the proposed budget cuts to public education. They have a press release detailing the event. I was one of the speakers of the rally, and thought that I’d share what I said here.
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Tags: budget, California State PTA, capitol, event, governor, protest, PTA, Schwarzenegger, speech

As many of you know, I’ve been working with phpBB for a long time, and I’ve been an active user on phpBB.com for almost four years. Nine months of those four years were spent as a member of the MOD team. While their team members do a great job (particularly given that they’re all volunteers), I still find that I have a number of bones to pick with them, and my greatest bone to pick has to do with how they communicate with other members.

I’ve been reading a book that I got from Patrick O’Keefe (of phpBBHacks.com et al) about how to create and run successful community forums (which I’ll be reviewing in full on this blog in a week or so), and one of the biggest things that has been stressed in that book is your relationships with your users and staff. Quite frankly, it’s a book that I think the phpBB team members should read, because I think that they really need to improve their relationships with the users on phpBB.com. Although they’ve repeatedly claimed that they’re trying to work on improving this, they usually tend to carry some kind of “I’m better than you” or “I know more than you” connotation when they communicate with the members on phpBB.com.

A very clear example with this happened yesterday. A few days ago, I started a topic on phpBB.com in response to the phpBB2 Retirement, and the topic started off well. Some people were very glad about the change, others were reluctantly accepting of the change, and some others were disappointed about the change, but it was an intelligent, productive discussion. However, around about page 5 or 6, when some of the team members (who shall be unnamed in this blog post) began arguing with the points that were made by some of the users. This in turn resulted in those users arguing back, which began to cause the atmosphere of that topic to turn a bit sour. (I wasn’t posting through this time, just watching.)

It was on page 6 that a user who had just registered called big_board_owner started making some admittedly poor comments about phpBB’s support policy, as well as claiming that the development process only took like 20 minutes and that he was “offering” his services to do security fixes for phpBB2, even though he flat out refused to listen to the team members who were saying that it takes a WHOLE lot more time than that to produce updates.

Now, granted, that user was agitating the topic and not behaving appropriately. But by the time I got towards the bottom of page 8, I started noticing that the posts that the team members were writing seemed just as rude towards him as he had been to them. Eventually the whole topic turned into a big fist fight between the team members and other members who had ganged up with big_board_owner, to the point where derogatory language was being exchanged in a couple of posts. Eventually, one of the team leaders had to end the dispute by locking the topic on page 12.

I’m not going to deny that the user was being inappropriate, but I feel that the team members sank to that user’s level by arguing with him. The point of the topic was not to argue about who was right or to argue that phpBB2 shouldn’t be retired, it was to discuss the fact that phpBB2 was being retired and to share our opinions on it. Quite frankly, I’d blame the team members for being the first ones to blame others of having “invalid” opinions and for hurting the general atmosphere of the topic. We all have opinions, nothing is going to change that, and the team members shouldn’t consider it their duty to “convert” everyone to the “correct” way of thinking.

The team members need to understand that they are the ones who set the atmosphere on phpBB.com, and as such, they need to hold themselves up to a much higher standard than the other users. This is true for ANY community. Any community will end up with users who sign up simply to cause trouble, and it should be up to the administrators/moderators to deal with that user in the appropriate fashion, NOT to argue with those users. What does arguing do? It makes them angrier and gives them even more reason to misbehave, and this hurts the community at large. Because of the way that the team members mishandled this situation, that topic for discussing (not arguing) the retirement of phpBB2 is now closed and now no one has the opportunity to share their opinions on this very important topic. Having worked with the team members before, I know many of them tend to prefer arguing with these users for their own entertainment and enjoyment rather than thinking about the interests of the community at large. As team members, they should have dealt with that user privately and not permitted him to take the conversation in a bad direction, but they chose instead to argue with him and effectively helped him with his goal to take the conversation in a bad direction.

The way that that topic materialized should be embarrassing to the phpBB team members because it shows that they do not know how to deal with users who register simply to stir up trouble. I for one think that if any reasonable kind of friendly community discussion is to be able to persist on phpBB.com and not fall into the kind of wormhole that the phpBB2 Retirement topic fell into, then the team members really need to take a look at their actions and rectify them, or they are going to find that their rapport with the users will turn sour very quickly.

Tags: administrators, community, discussion, forums, members, phpBB2, shame, team members, topic, users