Colin Charles Agenda

I use Thunderbird (current mail client du jour – pine, Evolution, Thunderbird, with maybe a smattering of Pegasus Mail in there for a short span of time) daily. Though I’m tiring of it for my great amounts of personal mail, and have been using GMail, because I can read it on the Web, via Thunderbird, on my phone, or at a public terminal. In fact, GMail rocks so hard, I’m moving more and more of my email to Google’s Hosted Apps service.

Today, Google has made things sweeter – with the announcement of Offline GMail as a Labs feature.

This means I can now use a site-specific browser like Fluid or Prism to read my mail. Because, now its now a real desktop application – even when I’m offline, I can read and reply to emails. This has been a much-requested for feature, for years. Its already enabled in Google Reader (which I use, with a SSB) as well as Google Docs (also, in a SSB for me).

Reminds me of what I used to do successfully over ten years ago on my Palm IIIx PDA (POP had its benefits… IMAP when offline, tends to act weird when brought online – read messages appearing unread, etc. – don’t know if this is a Thunderbird issue, per se)

Unfortunately, none of my GMail accounts have it enabled yet (even the ones with Google Apps hosted domains) :-( Time to wait for yet another killer feature – bringing the cloud to the (portable) desktop.

Today, I found out Michael Arrington of TechCrunch fame got spat on, but worse, he had death threats against him and his family previously (consequently, he will take a break during February to re-focus). It reminded me of what happened with Kathy Sierra, a while back, which made her stop blogging. Then it reminded me of the events of 2002, in where someone did the same thing to me.

When you’re public facing, and on the Internet, you tend to have a lot of your information spewed online. Social networking sites, and the constant need for you to share with others, helps drive the fact that any stalker can find information about you easily. Some even get their iPhone’s to update the Location field in Twitter automatically (wait, I think twibble on the Nokia phones does that too). We’re geotagging photos. Dopplr or TripIt tells others where you are planning to go – so this problem can also be cross-border.

We’re slowly giving up our privacy, to some extent. And we’re allowing malicious folk to know intimate details of our lives. Details that we wouldn’t mind sharing with a friend, but details that can be used to cause attacks, or even identity theft.

So, my question is: is this an online-only phenomena? I mean, journalists in traditional media do the same thing. OK, they have journalistic integrity, and the editors have strict guidelines to ensure that what is in print, isn’t drivel. Rumours tend not to be published, and everything is fact backed. Blogs tend to lack that, sometimes. Its harder to pinpoint and contact an individual journalist – you’ll just be getting to the editor. In a world where everyone can have the potential to be a journalist, without the integrity of one, is leaving yourself vulnerable online a good thing?

From a personal perspective, my incident about seven years ago hasn’t taught me much. I don’t paste my home address with GPS co-ordinates online anymore on my site – instead I use a PO BOX. But on social networking sites like Facebook, my friends get to see more details. With other people tagging photos of me, you even one even gets to see where I’m hanging out. And when I’m bored, I might tweet where I might be. And with geotagging, co-ordinates start showing up (especially if you have Location Tagger running automatically on the Nokia E71).

How do you deal with potential threats? Do you even think of it? Have you been threatened before?

Here’s hoping Mike has a good break and comes back blogging even stronger. Don’t give up!

I have lamented before, that Apple should sell the device, in more markets, especially here in Malaysia. I experimented with grabbing one here, and it turned out to be a pleasant experience. I can only sing praises for iWorld’s customer service, and quick delivery, and more.

But I think I’ve come to a realisation as to why the iPhone 3G is not ready for the Malaysian market yet, despite it being a groundbreaking device. So assuming you’re pining for one, you might want to think again, and settle for what is available in the market currently.

1. The camera is nothing to shout about – who cares for a 2MP camera, with no flash, no video recording by default. The quality is passable, but no different from my old Nokia E61i. I’d have expected a lot more from Apple, clearly.
2. No Multimedia Messaging (MMS) – don’t you think this is short-sighted? You’ve snapped a nice photo, and now you want to share it, and your only method to do it, is via email? Especially when the cost of MMS is a lot less than the cost of sending one email – unless you have an unlimited data plan, and that comes at around RM99/month via Maxis.
3. No video calling – the whole idea of a 3G network, is that you have a lot more bandwidth to use, and you would make video calls. In fact, Maxis doesn’t charge you any more to make a video call, than they charge you to make a voice call. Is this forward thinking? I believe so. But with the iPhone 3G, you cannot make a video call, which seems kind of daft. Its useful, when you’re out shopping, or just wanting to see what the other person looks like…

So, unless you’ve got an unlimited data plan (they don’t come cheaply), you’ll find the iPhone 3G lacking. In fact, even with an unlimited data plan, its kind of lacking, in comparison to what you can get from Nokia and other providers. Apparently, not only I think the iPhone 3G is semi-daft – APC magazine came out with ten reasons too (though to be fair, cut&paste works now, I believe).

And until the iTunes Music Store becomes available, I don’t see it being too useful. In fact, I see a lot of iPhone’s being used these days, but I can assure you the use of the AppStore is limited – so, even if I were planning to develop applications for the local market, I would think again.

On local developers
I would however like to highlight that there are local iPhone/iPod Touch application developers. Take a look a ApptivityLab with their mistletoe application, as well as the wabbit studio’s shizi app, that is a Chinese & Hong Kong units translator.

I always remember writing units translators when I first learn a new language. Its one of those exercises that you do, similar to Hello World.

At some stage, it would be great if there were local applications, that provided more integration with the A-GPS, and more. I have plenty of ideas, but its a chicken and egg situation – I’ll have to wait for Apple to bring the device here. But Apple won’t – because the device is lacking. So maybe, we’ll see something new at WWDC 2009? I doubt it, but I have hope. Why? Because Apple designs for the American market largely, and the American cell networks, are just not nearly as advanced as those, outside America.

As an aside… I’m surprised it was ready for the Singaporean market. I’d have assumed that MMS, a phone that records video, video calls, and more, would be required.

I was walking around Sungei Wang yesterday, and noticed a bunch of ads, selling the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for about RM1,399 or lower.

I had first read about it, from Suanie and was impressed when she said:

Vlasta Berka, GM of Nokia (M) took the stage to officially launch the Nokia 5800 XPM. He also announced the price – RM1,499 which I think is a real steal. They are also giving away 1,000 DRM-free songs with each unit; song artists include Madonna, Jason Mraz, Kylie Minogue, Norah Jones, Michael Buble… you know, the talented ones.

1,000 DRM-free songs. According to The Star, it comes with a voucher of some sorts, and you have a selection of over 10,000 songs, from big labels like EMI, Warner Music and so on. It comes I believe, with an 8GB microSD card, which stores up to 6,000 tracks!

But, lets go back to the 1,000 DRM-free songs. You’re paying market price – RM1,499, for a device, and you’re getting free music. Back in November 2008, I wrote about looking for devices that comes with music. I revisited the article in The Economist, and noted that handsets in the UK, could cost as little as £130, and it would come with a supply of music!

I wonder what Nokia is paying the music industry for this feature. In fact, I wonder if the music is downloaded over-the-air, which also means, people will want to get unlimited data plans. Budget-conscious owners, will probably do it via a desktop application (I presume), which probably only works on Windows. Discounting Mac users (and even Linux users), is a big mistake, which I hope someone like Russell Beattie would get fixed.

So, what is the true cost of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, without music? A phone store by Nokia, when Apple can’t even muster the iTunes Music Store? Depending on popularity, I wonder if Apple will slowly miss the boat, here in Malaysia. More on this, if/when I try the phone out…

I’m fielding thoughts/comments. What do you think if we had events like Social Media Breakfast in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia? Would you go? How would you contribute? What do you think you will get out of it?

Our neighbours down in Singapore have their own SMB.sg, and they seem to have a very rah rah styled event, that includes sponsors, venues, and when things start involving money/expenses, it takes a little more time for something like this to be organised (especially, in this dud economy). Just take a look at their public ledger.

Not far off, there is the Social Media Coffee Mornings in Sydney, and Melbourne. These happen on a Friday morning, which probably won’t fly in Malaysia, as people need to go to work :-)

My proposal
We have a similar event, held once every two weeks initially, on a Saturday morning, at a coffee joint that we wish to take over. There is potential for fun at Starbucks, in the Gardens, but better yet, you’ll find that the Coffee Bean in Mont Kiara has got a lot more space, parking, and is a bit more secluded (so its easy to move tables around, et al).

No projector/screen, bring your own laptops. There should be WiFi, which makes having it at a Starbucks better than a Coffee Bean, as the WiFi would then be free (and not provided via Airzed). One would need plenty of power sockets too, but if we keep it breakfast styled, let the event fizzle out in 2-3 hours, so that you can go and get lunch with your loved ones (or hook up the next great business with someone you met!).

Would you find value, talking to Web-types, into social media, entrepreneurship, technology, or even just making extra income via the Internet, every fortnight, all for the price of a coffee? Is 9am on a Saturday, too early for this sort of thing?

I envision this being a mashup of Social Media Breakfast, Social Media Coffee Mornings, and even OpenCoffee Club.

If you’re into Twitter, Facebook, blogging, building up web services that benefit others, and create a conversation, FriendFeed, community, entrepreneurship, making money via the online world, new media, advertising, and more, this is the kind of event for you. Field thoughts via comments, or a Twitter message :-)

Today I read that co.mments bit the dust. Another web service (who remembers the I Want Sandy discussion a while back), ceasing to exist (though from what I see, a lot of folk are using Disqus more).

It got me a little worried. I rely quite a bit on online services.

• Bookmarking, once previously living in my bookmark.htm file, now is shared on delicious. It has proven to be invaluable, storing 3,108 bookmarks. They are a Yahoo! run company.
• Photo storage and sharing, once previously sitting in directories on my web server, are now kept on my Flickr account. Flickr is great, because I can share photos with just friends, family, or participate in a vibrant community of photo enthusiasts. I currently have 16,813 items stored there, with backups on various media sitting in my various homes. They are a Yahoo! run company, and I happily pay them for a Pro account.
• I depend on Google Reader (read my shared items) to read RSS feeds. In fact, I have been sharing items as a form of bookmarking them. Ditto with adding stars to items. Don’t say Google doesn’t close services – they have.
• I use Google Calendar, because it simply rocks. I also use Google Docs, and I also use GMail (hosted, and regular).
• I use Twitter, who has no business model, as of yet. I like it over FriendFeed for one minor detail – I can update via SMS.

Most of these services have ways for you to get your data out of them, assuming they don’t exist in due time. But what will replace them?

Sure there are desktop applications. But with the variety of devices I utilise, I’m trying to cut down from using desktop applications and just focus on working online. In fact, all that is open now is Firefox, Adium, iTunes, TextMate (where I carve this text out), Terminal, Skype and twhirl. On my work laptop, its just Thunderbird, Firefox, Terminal, and Skype that’s open.

So maybe I need less desktop applications. It’s good, because that’s the hope of online services – live right in your browser.

But in tough(er) times, what do you do if the online service you use, disappears? Where’s the continuity (i.e. will my grandkids be able to browse my Flickr photo albums?)

I do wonder, if this will lead to more open source, peer-to-peer/federated run, online services. Like if Twitter folds up, who’s to say its excellent community won’t move to identi.ca ? (till then though, the latter probably doesn’t stand a chance, besides the very geeky top-of-the-trend open source folk…)