Archive for the ‘web apps’ Category

Where in the world is my iPhone?

Posted by Eric on June 11, 2009  |   No Comments »

So, I was just reading looking at my RSS feeds this morning at the downtown Fort Wayne Starbucks.  While looking over updates for the morning, I noticed the Apple MobileMe RSS had an update (read it here: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/news/2009/06/find-my-iphone-announced-at-wwdc09.html).  The entry was about the new Find My iPhone feature that Apple just announced at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC).

Here’s the brief (very brief) run-down:

Suppose you have an iPhone, and it gets lost or stolen.  Using Apple’s new feature, you can log into your mobileMe platform and find out EXACTLY where that iPhone is.  You can even remotely “wipe” all the data from the phone.

The feature also works with the iPod touch for those of us stuck with Verizon Cell Phones.

Here’s a couple of notes:

  1. You must have a mobileMe subscription – which I think it totally worth it for the sync features alone
  2. The feature won’t be available until the new iPhone 3.0 OS is realeased on June 17
  3. Obviously, the iPod Touch can only transmit its location over open Wi-Fi – so it’s not really that useful

I’ve included two screenshots from my mobileMe account below:

Mobile Me - Lost my iPhone Menu Item

Mobile Me - Lost my iPhone Menu Item

MobileMe Lost My iPhone page

MobileMe Lost My iPhone page

Fort Wayne Area Phone Calls – Less Than $3.00 / month!

Posted by Eric on April 10, 2009  |   No Comments »

So, I’ve just started getting really upset at my cell phone bill. I live and work in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area and have Verizon as my cell phone provider. Now, Verizon does a fine job of cell phone service. I get 1,400 minutes a month for around $105 a month. But, recently my bill has been closer to $200 a month after all my overages. Most of the time, I can trace my overages to long support phone calls, etc. Making a call to tech support on behalf of a client that ends up lasting 30 – 45 minutes can really start to eat into cell phone minutes.

So, I’ve just started looking for a better solution – something that works well here in the Fort Wayne area.  And, about the same time, guess what Google introduced?  That’s right – Google Voice (http://www.google.com/voice).  Now, Google voice is a private beta service.  You can only use it IF you had an account with the company they bought – Grand Central.  But, it just so happens that I do indeed have an old Grand Central number.  So, I’m part of the private beta.

Here’s a brief run down on Google Voice.  First – it provides no dial tone.  It is simply a number that others can call and then it is basically forwarded to another number – like a cell phone, home phone, VOIP phone, etc.  It also has GREAT voice mail and a ton of features (caller ID, call waiting, call listen in, all that normal jazz).  The voicemail is really nice in that Google will attempt to transcribe the message and e-mail you a written copy of it with a link to listen to it.  So, if the transcription isn’t good (although it has been really good so far), you can simply listen to the voice mail as you would any other.

At Google Voice’s home page you have a list of all your addresses (imported from Outlook, Address Book, or Gmail), list of all incoming calls, all placed calls, all voicemails, etc.  Basically it is a lot like GMail, but just for Voice.

Now, the problem is NO DIAL TONE.  This is a forwarding service only.  So, what good is that?  Well, for me, not much as my goal is to offload work from my cell phone.  So, I paid for a SKYPE IN number.  A Skype In number is a number OTHERS can call me at and it rings my skype.

So, that’s all good, but how about making an outgoing call?  Simple.  I go to Google.com/voice and click place call.  Then I type in the number or select it from my address book.  Google then calls my skype (so skype thinks it is an incoming call).  Once I pick up skype, then Google calls the number I wanted to call.  And, now, Voila – I have an outgoing call, WITHOUT paying for skype out.

Just in case you are wondering, skype in is only $2.95 a month.  And the sound quality is great.  So, now, for right at $3.00 a month, I have unlimited incoming and unlimited outgoing calls and great voicemail and all the features (like caller id, etc.) that I could want.

Plus, should I ever want to, I can forward my Google Voice number to my cell phone, home phone, etc.  Just in case.

So, far, from my experience here in Fort Wayne, it is awesome, cheap, and a great service.

Any else tried out either Skype In/Out or Google Voice?  Let me know.

Politics Get Dugg…

Posted by Eric on January 28, 2009  |   No Comments »

Digg (www.digg.com) is my favorite web site. For those of you who don’t know what it is, let me explain.

Basically, it is a “social news network”.  People (like you and me) surf the internet and find articles that we think are interesting and submit them to digg.  Then, other digg users (there are hundreds of thousands of them) see these newly submitted articles and decide if they think it is important or not.  If I like the story, or think it is important, i digg it (vote for it).  

The more digg’s the higher a story appears on the web site.  If a story gets enough digg’s, it appears on the home page.

So, basically instead of a very small minority of people deciding what they think we should hear about on the evening news, I get to decide – we all get to decide.

So, Digg has taken this concept one step farther.  What about a political interview.

What if we could interview political leaders.  But, instead of just the person doing the interview asking the questions, what if we could all submit questions?  Then, we all digg questions we like.  And, finally, the highest dugg questions get asked of the political leader.

Sound interesting?  

Well Digg has done it twice.  During the Democratic National Convention, they interviewed Nancy Pelosi (that’s right – Speaker of the House).

Now, they did it again with John Boehner – Republican House Minority Leader.

CNN actually conducted the interview, but Digg users (that’s you and me) submitted and voted on (dugg) the questions.  

Pretty cool, huh?

Here’s the video from CNN:

And, here’s the link to the Digg page:
http://digg.com/dialogg/John_Boehner_1?FC=UASDJB3

Yet More Reasons Why I Love WordPress

Posted by Eric on January 21, 2009  |   1 Comment »

I was just recently working on a client’s site (Share Gain) – which, of course, is powered by WordPress.  WordPress has become my favorite Content Mangement System of late.  The work prompted me to renew my love for WordPress.

If you’ve been reading the blog, you know that I power my entire site using WordPress.  I’ve also started using it as the DEFAULT install for every single site I develop.

Here’s a quick story about a Fort Wayne area client that I was doing some web design work for.

We had just recently taken the new, updated site live (http://www.sharetogain.com).  Now ShareGain has started posting content from all their learning sessions on the site.  So, they just recently had a morning session and the President of the organization went on-line and posted a Google Docs Slide Show from the mornig.  They quickly wanted all of teh following (things we didn’t realize before we rolled out the site live):

  1. A way for people to get e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted to the site, AND a way to customize those notifications to only be when certain CATEGORIES are update (for instance – I can get notifications whenever something new is posted in the IT/Technology category)

    – DONE – just used Post Notifications  - I made a few small edit to have it not list all categories – as some categories are just for displaying content and things like that.  BUT, I was able to find some help on where to modify the PHP code from the authors page!  

  2. A way to let a presenter of the session know whenever a comment is added to the post – So, Craig, the President may make the post, but we want the session presenter to get an e-mail whenever someone makes a comment about this post.  That way the presenter is encouraged to go on-line and continue the discussion

    – DONE – just used Subscribe To Comments – no modifications (other than what is exposed via the admin panel) needed here – it just works like we wanted it out of the box

  All in all, it took me about an hour to get the changes done.  Thanks to the beauty of Open-Source, the beauty of GPL (that I can re-distribute and modify), and the beauty of WordPress. 

I can only image how long this would have taken trying to use a closed proprietary system. 

This is why I love WordPress and am using it in all my web design projects.