ForTechiesOnly

First Chrome app i coded end to end: Highlight to Wiki

2012-02-15T15:19:00.000-08:00

Check out the first Chrome app i coded end to end :

Highlight to Wikipedia

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lnfpmeeipbaeokilhddnniialpepdnkp

I have been diving into html, css, javascript, and jquery quiet a bit since Dec. You can call it a 2012 resolution to become a code ninja ;) As a result :

Highlight to Wikipedia is my first Chrome app that i coded end to end. It was very enlightening to start from scratch and build up an app step by step (versus hacking existing apps which is what i normally end up doing).

Highlight to Wikipedia makes looking things up in Wiki super easy. Just highlight any text on any webpage and a convient "Wikipedia it" button pops up right there.

There is also a second flavor of the app that makes highlights search Bing instead of Wikipedia.

If you are a Bing fan Add it to your Chrome :

Highlight to Search (Bing)

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ibbjibelfkdjnodppoojbdhdfkgdldmb

MacroMeez : Super Awesome Vizualizer app for Mac

2012-01-31T17:32:00.000-08:00

One of my good friends, recently hooked me up with an alpha version of his visualizer app for Mac.

This weekend i saw that he put up a site so thought i would share it with other mac users:

http://www.macromeez.com

Macro Meez is a mac app ( it works smoothly on my OS X Lion).

The app allows you to control and play with the vizualizer.

It comes with some 16 awesome vizualization patterns that you can flip through. You can also control several parameters on each of the patterns.

Most importantly, the app supports being controlled by a standard Play Station 3 wireless controller.

Just plug in the USB cable into the Mac (while running Macro Meez) and if your Mac's BlueTooth is set to Discoverable the PS3 controller will automagically sync up and let you drive the vizualizations.

The app also supports using sound as an input for the vizualizer, if you dont want to control it :)

The combinations of the 15 patterns, and all of the parameter tweaks leads to what feels like infinite unique light shows.

Just try it, its beautiful light !

BM25 the root of search engines algorithms

2012-01-24T21:46:00.000-08:00

Recently we have been experimenting with http://sphinxsearch.com/ servers , a popular free search server that powers craigslist.com and many other leading websites. So as i was googling around for sphinx advice and tips, i learned that one of the main modes of sphinx weighting uses BM25 a keyword frequency full text based ranking algorithm that was invented in the 1980's. Turns out it is still very widely used.

Check out this great explanation of BM25 to understand the roots of modern search engines :

http://answers.oreilly.com/topic/2756-how-to-use-relevance-ranking-functions-with-sphinx/

Karma Science is like Hunch.com for Gifts on iPhone

2011-12-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

A few days ago an awesome iPhone app for finding and sending gifts directly from your iPhone went live in the App store. You should get it ! Disclaimer: a good friend made the app.

The app is called Karma Science. Download it here.

It is really well made, and easy to use. The UI is polished and smooth.

Check out the screenshots below:

At first i wondered how one could build a company around an iPhone "gifting app" . This is a subject that i have spent quiet some time thinking about, because of Zach's Free Gifts facebook app, and chatting how to make a cool iPhone version of his run-a-way success facebook app. http://www.freegiftsapp.com .

However, i was very quickly won over by a couple of subtle but important features, that made me realize that Karma was a smart play similar to hunch.com for iPhone .

1. The Karma Science brand has a marketing secret weapon. They introduce the app to early adopters by sending them a gift via Karma Science. Erin got delicious chocolates (which i sampled ;) ). This insured that Karma Science and by extension their iPhone app was branded as "Something Sweet" in our minds, before we even saw the iPhone app.

2. I like that Karma Science lets the gift Receiveer pick their size and color, in order to insure the optimal gift choice.

3. The exchange policy is a nice touch.

4. The catalog and icon driven categorization UI was smooth and easy to explore. It was a good first step towards taking out the complexity of figuring out a gift. The suggestions were well merchandized and polished. I do wish there were more options, and that they were ranked based on my own personal preferences (see #5 below).

************

Future Feature idea:

Automatic Gift Recommendations based on Facebook aka the "Science" part of Karma Science :) ************

5. The facebook integration, is currently simplistic but it clearly shows a direction that is very interesting t: Using facebook profile data + karma app usage data as input vectors for an automated recommendation of specific gifts as a fit for specific facebook friends. Karma could potentially build the "netflix recommendation" of gifts for facebook friends. Put differently Karma is positioned to do an iPhone version of Hunch.com (Hunch just recently sold to ebay for $80 million ;)).

Check out their website: http://www.karmascience.com

P.S. Judy i like how all of the app store screenshots have you sending a gift to yourself ... ;)

Jawbone UP CEO to users: No Questions Asked Guruantee ... AWESOME !

2011-12-08T13:09:00.001-08:00

My gf just gchatted me and told me the CEO of UP just emailed her. A copy of the letter is here:

http://forums.jawbone.com/t5/Product-Support/Update-from-the-CEO-The-UP-No-Questions-Asked-Guarantee/td-p/28258

As a recent adopter of Jawbone UP (i have actually gone through 3 bands so far. 1 for me, 1 for my gf ( and 1 more as a replacement for the 2nd one that failed), i am really excited by the potential of a device like UP to change how people interact with their health, mobile devices, and each other.

I reviewed the UP earlier this month, and then yesterday Engadget released their own review. In short the verdict was that the UP is great , the UP app has great features but overall needs to be more refined, and in total the product rules except for the lots of cases of the product failing. It was a bitter sweet engadget post for the UP team i bet.

So when i started reading the letter from Hosain Rahman ,UP's CEO, to its early adopter users (like me) it put a smile on my face. The swift action, and the solution, for this possibly product/ company crippiling problem is a grade A example of how to handle a product problem during the launch phase. The letter reassured me that Up was a reliably product platform to put my faith in. They are well capitalized after their $80 million raise. The CEO can clearly take swift action, and in short convinced me to believe them again.

So go on and get your Up. I think its a great product, that will continue getting better and better as their iterate the iPhone app version.

P.S. If you are an android user you got to wait still, sorry.

Flipboard for iPhone app review

2011-12-07T18:18:00.001-08:00

Got a text early this am from one of my friends who works at Flipboard .

"Flipboard for iPhone is out . Get it now ! "

Flipboard shot up in the Top 25 free apps chart to #8 .

The app has beautiful design and animation . The most stand out part of the app is that every aspect of "the user experience " feels highly designed and tuned . The flip animation is just right to be addictive.

Also , the design for Flipboard.com has been updated to advertise the launch of the app. The website background has a seamlessly integrated video of a hand holding an iPhone 4 and actually flipping through the app. Its brilliant because anyone who lands on the page cant help but see how the app works. just check it out to see what i mean.

The new big feature is "Cover Stories" . On the home screen Flipboard tries to predict the stories you will like based on your Facebook feed , retweets, and also your usage of the Flipboard app and which stories you engage with.

Check out these screenshots of the app for yourself. But really screenshots don't do the flip animation any justice.

new blog: TheVerge.com is like engadget 2.0 :)

2011-12-06T19:02:00.001-08:00

Check out theverge.com its Joshua Topolsky's new Gig. Until recently, Josh was the former chief editor of Engadget.com and steered it to being one of the pillars in tech and gadget blogs. Seems like another generation of tech blogs is coming. Arrington started a new blog, Topolsky started one too. Who is next ?

I discovered The Verge yesterday, and have found that i keep coming back to it. The design is very fresh , it feels "engadget 2.0" in a way.

Let me know what you think about it (or is your money on Uncrunched.com ? ) . It just may be the next big blog.

TheVerge.com Blog Layout

Jawbone Up wristband : Unboxing

2011-12-02T13:20:00.001-08:00

I just got a Jawbone Up wristband. I like it alot. Although it is still an early product, that will continue to be refined, you can already see how people can get addicted to the Up.

Below is a slideshow of the unboxing :) Check it out :)

It is a slick , water resistant (can wear in shower), 24/7 activity and sleep monitoring wrist band.

To use it you need a companion Up iPhone app (free in the app store). The Up is a smart gadget that is on trend with the latest hardware and software product trends:

Mobile hardware trends: used for biofeedback data collection

Accelerometers and gps -> activity monitoring
Camera -- > for nutrition intake / meal monitoring
Audio 3.5 mm data transfer --> Remote wrist band firmware reflashing.
Alway's On -> paradigm enables sleep analysis

Software Trends: Fun experience, that is social, and helpful.

Push Notifications -> Behavior conditioning and Up management reminders
UI for Monitoring Wristband data -> Fun and Addictive
Social Network -> Profiles, Activity Feed, Messaging,Privacy,
Viral Loop - > Joining Teams, share activity/challenge feed with others with Up.
Gamification of Behavior -> Challenge gallery, Badges

The Up's features focus on capturing data and displaying it in an easy to use iPhone app.

The wristband features :

odometer, sleep analysis , nutrition intake monitoring, alarm, activity alert reminder, and creating a social feedback loop to motivate you to get addicted to monitoring your health and improving it.

Check back for later posts on the iPhone app ui, and Up Teams ... super smart play of getting people sucked into the Up ecosystem.

The Up is Jawbones entry into the mobile health market consumer device segment. Jawbone is a leading company in mobile bluetooth headsets and other mobile accessories.

sway.fm blog widget alpha test w afrojack

2011-11-26T16:07:00.001-08:00

+++UPDATED: This post is an alpha test of Sway.fm a blog widget that makes a radio station out of songs posted in your blog feed. I thought it was interesting, and some friends are working on it, so i gave it a test ride on my blog (thats why the layout was in classic mode for the past couple of days).

Unfortunately blogger.com's dynamic views do not support any widgets or components to the layout. Even embedding youtube video is an issue for me in dynamic views (blogger you should work on this). This is no fault of sway.fm but blogger's issue. So i had to revert my blogger layout template back to classic, and then install sway.fm .

The rest of the this post is a test of the functionality.

Testing with Youtube:Testing with SoundCloud: Avicii - Silhouettes feat. Kelis (Smoke & Mirrors Vocal Mix) by Smoke & Mirrors ♪

Nook Tablet first impressions: sweet !

2011-11-21T20:29:00.001-08:00

Yesterday i got to play around with the new Barnes and Noble Nook Tablet. Below is a slideshow of the pics i snapped on my iPhone (the slideshow is made on my flixlab iphone app )

The Nook Tablet is an update of the Nook Color, which was B&N's entry into the android tablet market.

The Color did well, so B&N doubled down with an update aptly called the Nook Tablet.

++ I may do a more detailed unboxing of the Tablet / a comparison to the Nook Color later on.

But in terms of first impressions, i came away impressed. The price point is the first thing you notice, it is only $249. This puts its as a square competitor to Amazon's Kindle Fire (and both are going to be a real challenger to iPad 2 this christmas, since the iPad comes in about $300 more for the lowest model).

Some highlights:

The Tablets screen was real sharp. I streamed lord of the rings via netflix in HD, and it was crystal clear and sharp as a tack.
The interface was friendly and easy to explore. There was a very detailed "how-to" / getting started guide that you can launch from the home screen.
The android interface was redone with B&N's take on it, to really really focus on media consumption : Books and Movies. Both books and movies got spots on the home screen tray, and the main home screen real estate was dedicated to the most recent media.
Inside the Books themselves, there was a number of slic features like: bookmarking, highlighting, and sharing your highlights. This is definitely the future of ebooks : social sharing and connections around content directly inside ebooks. Could evolve into a game changer .
The nook had a newstand, and it seemed like it had a better title selection that the iOS news stand.

Some cons:

No cameras. But then again the Nook Tablet never claims to be an all purpose tablet like the iPad. So it stays true to its mission of being 110% focussed on media consumption: books, movies, and apps.
If you want to get your android app into the Nook, you have to redo some parts of your app to play by Nook's specific rules for apps. So its a little bit of a Porting investment.
No 3G option. So you need wifi.

Overall i was impressed. It really is a great device for a great price. Check out the slideshow above.

Google TV Beta Reflash. Logitech Revue updated to Android 3.1

2011-11-17T14:23:00.001-08:00

Check out the slideshow video below, i made using my iOS flixlab app. It is a slideshow of some of the key visual progress points you will see if you attempt to reflash your Google TV , Logitech Revue device.

We got a Google TV a few days ago, and immediately after connecting it to our home theater / projector set up. We knew that in order to use it we needed to update ASAP to get the android marketplace. Lets be real Chrome, and Android Marketplace are the top 2 things that are interesting about Google TV, and at the reduced $99 price point for the Logitech Revue, at Fry's, it was too hard to pass up.

So as soon as we booted up the Revue, and figured out that it shipped with Android 2.1 , we found an Android honeycomb 3.1 beta. Google for some reason was delaying the release of the official beta for the Revue, although they released the update for Sony devices.

Some things to note are that none of the TV& Movies sections, or Video content search worked for me. Netflix was also not available in this beta build. Chrome, Android TV Marketplace (another post on this will be coming), Youtube, all worked fine. Pandora and other apps worked great.

You can find the needed Beta file here:
http://www.load2all.com/files/BE2FD2F97/1b3a6b1aa9fd.mp-signed-ota_update-b55579.zip.html

You will need the .zip file and a USB thumbstick to reflash your device.
If you want a more detailed how to , here is where you can find it. They are copy and pasted below though for your convenience.

Caveat Lector (Reader beware) : Reflashing your Google TV is a delicate process. It may even brick the device if you mess it up. So proceed at your own risk. P.S. its TOTALLY worth it though.

I am copying and pasting the how to install instructions here, but you should definitely go check out the forum on GTV hacker. The comment are really useful.

Copy and Pasted from : http://forum.gtvhacker.com/revue-f12/topic15.html
"To install:

Copy the update.zip to a Fat32 formatted USB drive, place it in its root (ie /mnt/usb/update.zip or E:\update.zip)

Plug USB drive into Revue. Fully unplug revue. Plug it back in, count to One (a long one, say one mississippi), then hold down the connect button (keep it held). The Revue logo will come up, and the box will reboot, your tv will lose signal, and come back to the Revue logo. At this point, let go of the button.

The GTV logo will then show up, with an arrow and a horizontal "barbershop scroll". At this point, on your Revue's keyboard, press the FN key (in yellow) and the left arrow (to the left of the OK button). It will then come up to a recovery menu.

Hit "Apply update from sdcard:/update.zip"

The box will verify the update, and reboot. This is normal. It is installing an updated bootloader and recovery image (both, heavily encrypted).

Then, the box will come back on, and flash the latest kernel and system files. Once this is done, the box will reboot again.

This bootup may take a few minutes, at first you will see the Revue logo, then the Google TV logo, then the "new" logo (a grey tv over a ball glowing red). Just wait it out.

You can then begin setup, as normal. You may notice some crashes - this software is still beta, you should be able to force close and continue.

EDIT: There have been reports of issues proceeding with the honeycomb setup wizard that we are still looking into. Please at least for the time being refrain from installing the update unless youwant to risk not being able to use you're revue.

EDIT 2: People are now reporting that one can go thru the setup wizard without issue now, but still - update at your own risk as you can't downgrade!

EDIT 3: Note: Holding the recovery button will automatically reboot the box, also a Ctrl+Alt+Del from the keyboard will work as well. Unplugging the box could result in a corrupted NAND (which could result in a brick)!

WordPress has an "Apps" Marketplace ... by Envato

2011-11-14T12:59:00.001-08:00

In the past couple of weeks i have spent quiet a bit of time working with WordPress and Blogger. I had to set up a WordPress website for XO, and move my Blogger blog over to this domain (fortechiesonly.com).

In the process i discovered a marvelous resource for all things wordpress + web design. A company called Envato operates a network of websites that lets web designers and bloggers get themes, code , stock photos, audio, plug ins and apps.

You can find all of these goodies at Themeforest.net and Codecanyon.com .

I thought the Wordpress "plug-ins" on CodeCanyon were especially interesting. The reason that i see this as an App marketplace for WordPress, is because a lot of this content is for sale.
Check it out here: http://codecanyon.net/category/plugins/wordpress

In fact i ended up purchasing a Super Skeleton WP theme from Themeforest.net. In the process of setting it up i got exposed to the concept of grid systems which seem to be the rage in web site front end dev circles. Both twitter and Zurb have recently relased grid based ui and template frameworks to quickly prototype web designs.

I recommend checking out both actually, since they are both Free.

Zurb's is called Foundation . Download it here.

Twitter's is called BootStrap. Download it here.

Smarter than Nest: Sunset.com's smart home

2011-11-14T12:20:00.001-08:00

This weekend, i checked out Sunset.com's smart home in down town Palo Alto, CA. I am not going to get into the awesome interior decor/ the quality of the house itself because it was all superb (it better be for the $1.5 million price tag one of these fetches), instead ill tell you about the awesome apple powered home automation system they had.

Check out the slideshow i made of the system, the slideshow was made via my Flixlab iPhone app.

I was a bit skeptical at first, since i heard that their "smart home" didnt even have one of the new Nest Lab's thermostat's that are all the rage right now in tech circles (Nest's launch resulted in a complete sell out, they had to cut off taking new orders for the next 3 months).

But as soon as i walked through the door, i was blown away by the level of automation and control the home had via iPhones and iPad's. The set up was a custom set up by Savant and integrated by Gator tech.

From any iOS device you could turn on and off any light, set the temparture, unlock the front door or gate (keyless locks/ touchpads were cool) , see security cam footage, turn on music (Sonos branded devices were all over the house), and even more. Any iPhone or iPad could control the system, and the house had several iPad's worked flush into the wall. They even made a custom remote control molding for an iPod Touch that came as part of the system. The whole set up was run off a dedicated server/ computer rack in the closet. They converted a Mac Mini into a custom controller for the whole system.

Check out the slideshow below.

Google TV Unboxing: Logitech Revue ( with SlideShow)

2011-11-13T16:41:00.001-08:00

Once i heard about Android Marketplace coming to Google TV (effectively putting Google in the lead for dominating the soon to be booming TV Apps marketplace) , i knew i was going to get it ( ive long wanted an apps marketplace on an Apple TV, but so far even the jailbreak community has failed to provide something easy to use ).

So the same day that the CEO of Logitech announced that they are axing the Google TV hardware business and writing it off as a $100 million loss i went out to Fry's and got one. My thinking was that the hardware was going to be on sale, but the software platform with its new Google TV 2.0 release is going to continue growing with or without Logitech.

The Revue was only $99 . That is $200 cheaper than the price it was at when it came out.

The bad news is that once i unboxed it and set it up i realized that it was running Android 2.1 (and did not have the new Google TV Honeycomb 3.1 update installed on it). This ment that there was no android marketplace, and a pretty outdated chrome version.

After some research, i luckily found a beta release of Google TV 2.0 (Honeycomb 3.1) and reflashed the Revue. Maybe i will do another post on how to get the Beta if you are not patient enough to wait for a few more week to get the official release. Stay tuned.

Maiden Post from ForTechiesOnly.com ... testing

2011-11-13T12:08:00.001-08:00

This is my 1st post from draft.blogger.com dashboard to ForTechiesOnly.com . Hope this works ! :)\

Up until now i have been using modernmobility.blogspot as my main URL for the blog, with a meta refresh redirect from sergeylossev.com. A few months ago i bought ForTechiesOnly.com , but did not take the time to set up a custom domain in my blogger.com dashboard.

Today, i took the time to set it up. It required adding 4 A Name records , 1 C Name record, and checkboxing a redirect checkbox inside the blogger dashboard (that i missed the first time around).

Finally, it all seems to work now. So i have an easy to remember brand for my blog... only took 5 years...lol

Got a Gamerfood.com box , pics below

2011-11-10T19:54:00.001-08:00

Chris Davis , a good friend and the founder of GamerFood.com came by yesterday evening . He brought over a box of gamerfood.

Took some pictures for your viewing pleasure below .

Will report back on how snackable gamerfood really is , after I eat a half dozen of these packs ;)

Come to ChartBoost Hackathon, this weekend !

2011-11-08T10:12:00.000-08:00

Love making iOS apps? Love making iOS games ? Come to Chartboost.com's new SOMA office in SF, and hang out with the brightest minds in iPhone app development. Talent form Tapulous, Chartboost, Free Gifts, SGN, TMD, FlixLab, Disney Mobile, and many other hot iPhone dev shops will be there working on an awesome game just in time for thanksgiving.

Go RSVP as attending on the official hackathon facebook page :

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=171298596296214&view=wall&notif_t=event_wall

See you there ; )

TED x Harker , cant believe my Highschool hosted a TED !

2011-11-08T09:56:00.000-08:00

Got an email this morning from a harker class mate, Akhsar. The email was about TED x Harker.Here is a link to Harker's page on the event : http://tedx.harker.org/

My highschool got together with the TED conference (Awesome !!) and used Harker's elite silicon valley network to draw in world class entrepreneurial and VC talent to come and speak on the topic of entrepreneurship. My only regret is not finding out about this in time, to attend.

Check out this TEDx video of Guy Kawasaki speaking at Harker . Guy was the commencement speaker of Harker's first graduating highschool class, 2002. His speech and his book "Art of the Start" , influenced me as a freshman in college to leave the lab and jump into entrepreneurship.

Gamerfood.com relaunched: Looking delicious

2011-11-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Last year i covered Gamerfood.com , as they experimented with a venture idea: snack food for gamers.

After putting in the sweat equity, they recently relaunched and are doing great job getting out into the market. Gamerfood.com website is completely redone and rebranded, with an upgraded store. They sell 3 typs of nuts with awesome names:

Seeds of Victory (original flavor)
Cashews of Chaos (honey roasted flavor)
Nuts of Destruction (Ancho chili lime flavor)

They are landing articles in PC Gamer, Geekologie, and Kotaku. You can see why in the video below, they did their homework:

GE breaks down the EMR imperative

2011-11-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

This video cuts to the chase of why in the next 2 years we will go through a medical practice disruption.
It goes into the actual practice needs vs HIT financial incentives that are part of the "meaningful use" clause, that everyone is executing against.

by 2013 all most all doctors in US will be using a new wave of web based, iPad/iPhone , and android apps every hour of the day. Watch this video from GE (this is marketing video for GE Centricity EMR) to see what this upgrade means to our healthcare system as a whole. This is a much needed update to our health infrastructure.

To delve just a little bit deeper into the financial incentives the federal government has created for practioners to adopt EMR's. See the screenshot below. Its pretty convincing that given a $44,000 pay out over 5 years plus with the benefits called out in GE's video above. Practices are actually going to upgrade and adopt emr !

This chart was taken from this great presentation on EMR and Meaningful use. Check it out:

http://www.emrandhipaa.com/emr-and-hipaa/2009/07/16/ehr-stimulus-arra-presentation-in-austin-texas/

MyPad v 2.5 : Now with Free Gifts !!!

2011-11-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

Its alway great to see an idea manifest into reality in this crazy start up world of ours.

I was psyched to see MyPad launch version 2.5 of its home run iPad app for facebook.

You can get the free iPad version here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mypad-for-facebook-twitter/id412133981?mt=8

Mainly i am psyched because it has Free Gifts, Zach's facebook gifting app, baked into it. I have been a long time fan of Free Gifts , so i am happy to see the awesome gifting feature baked into MyPad in a simple and sweet way. Good work Cole, Christian, Zach, and Sean :)

Surprisingly, since facebook has launched its iPad app MyPad growth actually accelerated. With the new version 2.5 update there is now even more differentiation and uniqu value proposition in MyPad that is not in the facebook client (even though the facebook UI is a shamelss rip off IMHO ).

P.S. There is an iPhone app as well that is worth checking out:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mypad-for-facebook-twitter/id454703425?mt=8

FlixLab #1 Photo app (Beats Instagram Halloween weekend)

2011-10-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

Flixlab is currently the #1 Photo and Video app. It beat Instagram for the spot during Halloween weekend.

It is also #10 in Top Free Apps USA (overall not a category).

Here is a link to the flixlab app store page if you want to go download it. or check out flixlab.com for more info on it

I made a video detailing the meteoric rise of the Flixlab app , version 1.2, in the appstore rankings over the past 48 hours. The video clip is fittingly made on my iPhone using Flixlab itself. Talk about eating your own dogfood :) !

http://fb.flixlab.com/watch/09szles1mvxl50xr2i30jnkmht?p=09szles1mvxl51a6bd8d6weg9t&s=e

Flixlab new version, 1.2, is sky rocketing

2011-10-28T09:35:00.001-07:00

Flixlab an app that is like a free iMovie for your iPhone , that I previously reviewed, has been hard at work at making the service better. Flixlab also has some good social integration features for sharing your flix with your Facebook friends and other flixlab users .

In the past couple of days they released v 1.2 . Go install it , it's awesome :)

They fixed bugs and added new features . Mainly they worked on performance it seems , because it now works quicker and more reliably for me.

This morning I noticed flixlab was #6 app in the photo & video category

+++ UPDATE++++ Flixlab is now #4 Top Free app in the Photos and Videos Category+++
It is also #113 Top Free USA overall .

So go install Flixlab and make some sweet movies .

Blogger in Draft = Sweet Upgrade :)

2011-10-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

Just Discovered draft.blogger.com and i must say i am impressed.

#1 the new UI is inline with the rest of the new UI that is being propogated across Google's Product line.

- draft.blogger.com feels consistent with the new google docs, gmail, google + UI.

#2 a new G+ integration feature allowed me to get a "contributor to For Techies Only" link up on my G + profile. Something that i have been wanting to do for awhile.

#3 If this post actually posts into my G+ stream that will be a cool exposure boost as well ... TBD ...

My favorite Peets has Google Wallet ...

2011-10-26T09:32:00.001-07:00

A Peets that I frequent in Cupertino , has Google Wallet payment installed.

Going to be interesting to see if this sticks ;) iPhone pic i snapped below :

Chartboost raises $2 million !!! awesome !!!

2011-10-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

Sean's, Maria's, and Ken's start up is flourishing. Just a few weeks after their first TechCrunch coverage, here is a follow on story :

They raised $2 million !!!

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/24/chartboost-raises-2-million-in-series-a-funding-already-profitable/

ModernMobility first covered Chartboost here and also here all the way back in april / may

Greatest Pager ever , Moto Talkabout

2011-10-23T17:26:00.001-07:00

After taking several car loads of stuff to goodwill today , this little gem fell out of one of the numerous boxes of wires .

I was excited to see The familiar blue of the greatest pager ever :

Motorola Talkabout

This was a catalytic (precursor device to popularizing SMS chat into the mainstream back in 2000/2001 . 2 Talkabouts could chat with each other over with FULL QWERTY !!!! They also had a number that people could call into , an operator picked up and translated whatever message you wanted into a text message to the Talkabout . It was amazing :)

What's really surprising that after I switched out the AA battery to a new one , it somehow picked up nfl scores from oct 23 , 2011 :) go flex protocol :?

Google + Song (queen) ... totally awesome viral video

2011-10-22T13:03:00.001-07:00

I thought i did a post about this 3 + weeks ago, but i guess i forgot . So here it is.

This is a great sounding viral video song by Ashley Pittman ? It is based on Queen's another one bites the dust melody, but the lyrics are rewritten for showing off Google Plus.

Focussed, Effortless, Elastic the 3 pillars of Google UI

2011-10-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

Just watched a great video of Jon Wiley, Google's lead designer for search on Google Operating System.

+++++ As an aside Google Operating System is a fantastic blog if you are interested in modern web products/ ui design .Their coverage of Google products is top notch.

At XO we work on innovating the Google search experience, everyday, for the past year. So it was very interesting to finally find out who was leading the charge of the new Google redesign, and tackling some of the the same challenges we have to deal with.

Jon has a great presentation, click through for the video, that covered the story of the new redesign:

That the project was initiated on the same day that Larry Page became CEO, the initial resistance to change from users, How designers at Google finally got let out of the cage, and lastly how it now adds up into a cohesive new look for Googles product line that users are loving.

Some of the most interesting details for me where that the 3 pillars of the new redesign are :

Focussed , Effortless , Elastic
explanation of the color coding of the buttons.

Red = Main action (e.g. Compose button in Gmail)
Blue = Common "just do it actions" (e.g. Search button)
Green = actions that have to do with sharing or an audience.

Check out the original post and watch the presentation. There is also this post with screenshots as well.

Spookify - Instagram for scary pics, best halloween iPhone app

2011-10-15T15:14:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: And here is the awesome website http://www.getspookify.com/

Just tried out the freshly released Spookify iPhone app. It is great :) Simple and Fun !! It is definitely worth the $.99 price .

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spookify/id472623717?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

I think it may be one of the best Halloween 2011 apps.

It is basically instagram but for scary haloween faces. Want to make an awesome facebook profile pic for yourself to get into the halloween spirit ? Spookify can help you. Want to just goof off with a friend and make some funny pics ? Spookify is definitely a good way to have fun for 10 minutes with a friend.

Good work Sean (great coding) and Bret ( great design) . This is a great addition to the TouchMobileDesign.com - TMD family of apps :)

And remember you heard about Spookify at For Techies Only first !

P.S. Erin is an icon for the Filters that are available, her filter icon is titles "Death" .

Gallery of screenshots below :

iPhone 4S demand through the roof, crowds at UPS store for missed delivery

2011-10-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

I couldn't believe it UPS had hundreds of people at 9 PM on Friday.

Everyone was waiting to get their iPhone 4S shipment that they missed delivery for.

That is overwhelming consumer demand, if i ever seen it :)

Hi iOS 5 , Good Bye Siri ( 1.0 )

2011-10-14T00:54:00.000-07:00

Good News:

I upgraded to iOS 5 yesterday. In short: the notifications tray is awesome, the new weather app with hourly support is great, and the rest feels like nice subtle tweaks.

I decided to try out: find my friends, airport utility, reminders, and newsstand :)

Sidenote: the upgrade process was not too smooth, it bricked my iPhone into DFU mode, and required a restore attempt (albeit this was during the peak of the post release rush).

Bad News: Good Bye Siri (on iPhone 4 )

Apple's focus on Siri as the key feature of iPhone 4S is daring and ambitious. I have been using Siri since its release on iOS , and i think it has potential to be truly transformative . It can be the stepping stone to all of us learning the behavior of talking to our technology (think star trek and talking to the computer ).

My problem with apple's approach is that they are killing Siri 1.0 on iPhone 4's like mine. I get that it is a major reason to upgrade, and they really want to make the line between iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S stark . But i think it may alienate the core group of original users who could have been the early evangelists and turned into ambassadors for this visionary technology. Now i think a number of them will feel burned and not convert to evangelizing the product and technology .

Post iPhone Era in mobile : What's next

2011-10-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

I started out in mobile in 2005. It was the time of flip phones :) WAP mobile internet sites.

The sex symbol of the industry was soon to be the Motorola Razr.

Then suddenly in 2007, Apple unleashed the iPhone and a new mobile era began. Now 4 years later, you can see that all smart phones are imitating apples iPhone. HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Apple, and others are all making all touch screen (no physical buttons), skinny brick phones.

With this weeks unfortunate events in Cupertino, it seems like a good time to reflect on what will be the next step in Mobile ? What is the next Era ?

To be honest i don't have a crystal ball, but i did discover a Samsung concept phone that sure looked like the future to me. Check out the Samsung Galaxy Skin concept phone mock ups below. Or click through to this article on Yanko Design that has even more mock ups ...

The concept seemed too far out to be real, but watching this video made me believe ...

Steve Jobs: Remembering an innovator who changed the world

2011-10-05T16:52:00.001-07:00

Very sad :( to read the news that Steve Jobs has left us.

His life, work, and vision will always be an inspiration:

http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

Arrington' new blog Uncrunched.com, Take that AOL !

2011-09-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

HTTP://WWW.UNCRUNCHED.COM

This made me smile. When i saw TC sell to AOL, my stomach sank , it felt like an end of era in the start up world. The boutique blog that i grew up with (in the start up entrepreneurial sense) sold to an icon of the late 1990's ... it felt like corporate america was outlasting the start up dreams of silicon valley.

With this tweet/ website Arrington just put a smile on my face, it feels like the beginning of the next chapter in the start up world. Ad Astra

SEO goldmine Schema.org

2011-09-24T19:46:00.001-07:00

Visited this resource today. After having completed an SEM/SEO class at UCSC extension a few months ago, the content of schema.org was alot more interesting to me.

http://schema.org/docs/full.html

If you have ever optimized html code for SEO best practices this will be an awesome cheat sheet for you. I wonder what kind of statistics exist for the penetration/traction of some of these more advanced meta tags among webmasters ?

Google is not perfect, check out this graphic

2011-09-21T02:21:00.001-07:00

Opportunities to push the envelope in search:

1. This graphic illustrates the main shortcomings of Google:

Google's 10 results per page paradigm is on its way out , never ending pages and pages of results are a sub par solution for helping us navigate the web.

2. Search Personalization algorithms do not alleviate the above problem, they make it worse.

Personalization algorithms lead to filter bubbles, a great illustration of the filter bubble problem can be found here : http://dontbubble.us/ . This guide was made by DuckDuckGo.com (a cool alternative search engine) . It was inspired by Eli Pariser's Ted Talk, On the Dangers of Filter Bubbles (here is the ForTechiesOnly post on it)

Enlightening post on downsides of Google App Engine

2011-09-20T17:21:00.001-07:00

XO made the switch to GAE in may 2011. Since then we have not looked back, because the 0 sys admin draw of GAE saved us a lot of time as we iterated a million times on what our server system requirements are. However, now that our product vision has matured and solidified we are looking beneath the surface. Once you zoom in the details you start realizing that GAE is not a silver bullet solution for all of your worries, in fact its a pretty limited system that does certain things well and other things poorly. So just like LAMP stacks, you got learn the ins and outs and play the game by the rules alotted.

Today Adam fwd'd a great article that delves into the shortcomings of GAE. Check it out, its one of the best ive found:

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~silver/gae.html

The simlified down take away was that GAE is great at reads and not so good for writes. e.g. An app that has 100 : 1 reads : writes ratio "should" do really well. Read the linked post to get other relevant details.

Visualize.me makes a Sweet Resume for you

2011-09-20T17:07:00.001-07:00

I have been tracking Visualize.me for awhile now, since i really like the idea of automating the creation of stunning resumes (i have spent tons of time editing my own, and helping friends edit their CV's).

Just saw that Visualize.me is finally live, so i gave it a test drive. It was very cool. Check out my resume as an example. Click the handy embeddable badge they give you as a share option.

discovered Mozilla Prospector, very cool search innovation, and related to XO!

2011-08-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

After looking through my LinkedIn yesterday to see who i may know at Mozilla, i stumbled onto a number of really interesting things:

1. Prospector, a Mozilla Web Labs project that is exploring search in the context of the browser.

- Something that we have spent the last year doing at XO!

http://mozillalabs.com/blog/2010/10/exploring-search-in-the-context-of-the-browser-with-prospector/

2. Web FWD a browser based product idea accelerator program from Mozilla that is just now launching.

- This will require a more in depth follow on post.

For now i am exploring Prospector and recommend you do too :)

Congrats Ilya's co, Parse.com raises $1.1 Mil :)

2011-08-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Wanted to put up a brief post about Parse.com

An interesting play, that is Heroku for iOS (or for mobile).

Ilya, one of my best friends from highschool, and team seem to have done a stellar job on executing fast. In less than 3 months they put together a team, got a product together, got top tier beta partners, and based on that raised $1.1 Mil , then followed up with a swift launch to some TC and Read / Write web fanfare. Solid Work :)

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/04/yc-funded-parse-a-heroku-for-mobile-apps/

http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/08/parse-offers-backend-as-a-serv.php

http://gigaom.com/2011/08/08/parse/

I look forward to watching where Parse.com goes.

Start Up BnB v 1.0 was a hit . See video

2011-07-28T15:58:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we had our 1st StartUpBnB.com meet up @ ThirstyBear Brewing Co.

Thanks to everyone that came out to the event !

We had 50 + Founders, CEO's, Execs, Consultants, Hackers, and VC's join in on the meet up .

In a sentence the spirit of the meet up :

" To create a YC -Combinator like network of resource sharing to help each other grow our ventures, just without the equity cut that YC takes :) "

Below is a brief video of the event that a well known VC - Stewart Alsop of Alsop & Louie fund made:

Thanks for everyone who came out to Version 1.0 of the event.

Stay tuned for next months, version 2.0 event . It will be 2X as good !

Come out to the 1st Start Up Beers and Burgers meet up today, July 27 at 5

2011-07-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy lately just realized that i never got a chance to do a blog post about Start Up Beers and Burgers. Judy thanks for pointing this out to me ! :)

Bob Christopher and i compared notes, and realized that one of the key things missing for start up founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, VC's, and hackers is a network of other people just like them to exchange stories with, support each other, make intros, and generally help each other out.

Collectively we have the access , talent, and network to solve most of our respective venture growth problems, we just need a YC combinator like forum (just more craigslist like and less formal) to all network together.

For this reason we created Start Up B&B or http://www.startupbnb.com

Please go check it out. Sign up. All of the fancy featured are powered by MeetUp.com btw. They have lots of great features out of the box, so we decided not to recreate the wheel here.

Come out to our version 1.0 event today at thirsty bear. Hope to see you guys there.

Find out StartUp Success Secrets @ StartUpBeersandBurgers.com

2011-07-12T00:04:00.000-07:00

Check out StartUpBeersandBurgers.com

( the website design was hacked together on caltrain today, it is version 0.1, so please don't mind the design. )

StartUp B&B is an invite only event series for CEO's, VC's, Founders and Hackers in SF/ Bay area .

The vision is to create a "craigslist" style forum for start up ceo's and founders to help each other and to share founder, capital, and leadership resources. Do it all over Beers and Burgers (make sure those are delicious of course ) . Keep things informal, relaxed, and fun.

We tried out the idea with people showing up from Bloson.com, UptoDown.com, Infometers, xotags.com (both adam and i attended), Bob Christopher , ReReply, Genesys, and a few others.

It turned out to be a good time, so we decided to see where we can take the idea of founders/ceo's and investors INFORMALLY networking over beers.

Going forward we expect it to be a 1 time per month meet up in SF :

0. Keep it fun.

1. Get Beers and Burgers

2. Chat about our companies and swap stories. Focus on identifying how resources can be swapped, pooled, and leveraged collectively.

3. No hard pitching .

4. Develop a forum or email newsletter where people can ask each other for help, and also help others in terms of networking, recruiting, legal doc templates, advice, design, coding etc

5. Recognize individuals that help others out.

If you think this is an interesting idea, go to the site and sign up for the email newsletter.

MyPad nails the "facebook browser" product vision

2011-06-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

The MyPad guys have done an excellent job of nailing the "facebook browser" product vision.

This is a vision that i am very familiar with , since we did the same back in 2006 at VCEL and then again in 2008 at Flock.

The MyPad guys, the artists formerly known as http://thefacepad.com/ (i see them around DogPatch.com ) Christian and Cole have done a top notch job at building a fantastic product and steering it to some serious iOS traction/ adoption.

As Facebook prepares to release their own iPad, HP TouchPad, and other tablet native apps (or so rumor has it anyway) . The MyPad guys are staying 1 step ahead of the curve. Check out their latest move. Link to the latest press on them from TechCrunch below , Click through:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/29/mypad-the-facebook-for-ipad-app-is-now-a-game-distribution-platform-too/

RockMelt raises $30 M to keep the social browser idea alive

2011-06-28T22:15:00.001-07:00

RockMelt just added Vinod Khosla to its board, and announced that it secured another $30 M in VC funding. Making the total $40 . This puts its war chest to be more than Flock.com 's total raise before its eventual sale to Zynga. Disclaimer: i worked at Flock

I am going to be closely watching RockMelt as it attempts to break into the browser space, they say that eventually their business model will rely on search (as all of the browsers do). Good thing, XO already works in RockMelt (since it is based on Chrome) . I hope that RockMelt starts gaining traction, because XO can really help them with their social search proposition (My Flock products had an 86% boost in search ARPU ;) ) .

Some other good articles covering this:

http://gigaom.com/2011/06/28/rockmelt-funding/

Google Launches Google + social network .

2011-06-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

I just got an invite email for http://plus.google.com , presumably from one of my friends adding me .

I was pleasantly surprised to find an awesome welcome experience for what looks like Google's most serious play to stay competitive socially.

After playing with only for a few minutes, 2 things jump out:

1. "View as someone else" feature

2. Their invite UI, that animates, and keeps suggesting users from your gmail to invite, is very slick. Before i knew it i had invited 20 of my gmail contacts into my social circle on Google +.

2. Social Circles, and permissions grouping is emphasized from the ground up. This will be extremely useful if the service scales.

Disappointing, Google hangs in the towel on Health

2011-06-25T02:40:00.000-07:00

Google Health has officially hung up the towel:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/24/google-shuts-down-medical-records-and-health-data-platform/

After spending years in the Health locker space, Google Health has given up, because their impact "wasn't broad" enough. While i understand the reasons a public company like Google would cut Google Health out of their P&L sheet, it is disappointing to see one of our best chances at revamping the monstrous medical records segment into a modern web based data structure.

Here is to hoping Microsoft Health Vault doesnt give up as easily ! It seems they are doing better with user friendly features such as Facebook integration and mobile support :

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsofts-healthvault-gets-facebook-authentication-mobile-phone-support/9625

Mob.ile Community Chat Series at Opinno. Come over you are invited :)

2011-06-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

What are you up to next Wednesday ?

If you are into mobile you should make the time to come out to a community chat series event at Opinno:

Here is a brief description of what the chat will be about:

" The event focuses on the success of consumer mobile apps that are changing how people work and what apps they use. The line between consumer and enterprise apps are changing and promise to reshape the old school enterprise software world. What makes an enterprise app successful may be it's wide appeal and adoption by consumers first, IT Departments second.

The event is conversational co hosted by Bob Christopher and Kenny Lauer of GPJ www.gpj.com

Some people talking will be:

- CEO of Voxxer

- Marketing person from Tapulous.com

- Marketing person from Twilio.com

The event is from 5-7 PM Wednesday June 29th.

Come out to Opinno if you can :

Opinno San Francisco
38 Pier Ste 208
San Francisco, CA, 94107-2117

Location

PIER 38 is located: 1/2 mile South of the Oakland Bay Bridge, 1/2 block North of the intersection of Townsend and The Embarcadero. AT&T Park Baseball Stadium is 1 block to the South.

Some friends form Yelp, Google, Apple, Twilio, Chartboost.com, FlixLab.com, Evernote, Parse.com, WebMynd.com, FlipBoard, ViciousDericious.com ,XO, SurfCanyon.com have been invited :) Lets see who will show up :)

FlixLab Launches: Its like iMovie app but FREE !!!

2011-06-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

FlixLab has just kicked their launch into gear ! From beta or soft launch mode into a full scale campaign.
Disclaimer: My good friend Ed, ex VCEL i might add, is working on their launch. So pretty much go download it NOW !

+++ 2nd update of course a day after of my review of FlixLab, apple added Flixlab to their new and noteworthy section :) Congrats flixlab :) See screenshot below, FL logo in the top right ++++++

++++ Update: Following my lead LifeHacker called out FlixLab as their app of the day ! :) . I like the sound of that maybe Modern Mobility will start a series of posts called "App of the day" :)

http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20072764-12/flixlab-lets-you-and-a-friend-create-fun-movies-easily/
http://mashable.com/2011/06/21/flixlab/
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/software/3287403/flixlab-review/
http://gigaom.com/video/flixlab-location-based-sharing/

Yesterday's headlines in PC Mag, GigaOM, Mashable, and a host of other blogs announced FlixLab as a better thought out approach to Color. And as the solution that will unlock all of your iPhone pics and movies that have been locked away in the dark and lonely dungeons of your camera roll ...

I have been using FlixLab for several weeks now, and its slowly growing on me. The best description is that its like Animoto.com but for iPhone. It lets you create fun and slick slideshows and gives you cool sharing options via posting to facebook or within the FlixLab app itself. I have made several videos, and shared them on facebook . As well as played around with several more that i did not share.

FlixLab has a cool 1.0 version out now that has new events and location features. This is why GigaOm's article painted FlixLab as a better thought out version of Color. The features are pretty cool. I think FlixLab should keep improving the app along this line of thinking :)

Google Murakami logo

2011-06-21T00:14:00.000-07:00

Google Murakami Logo

After completing a long SEO/PPC proposal project for my UCSC SEO Marketing class, seeing a bit of fun in search is refreshing :)

Google's TV AD Storm/Blitz: Gaga+Chrome+ChromeBooks

2011-06-05T13:00:00.001-07:00

Having been on the Chrome bandwagon for some time now I was really excited to unearth the wealth of YoutTube videos (with millions of views) about Chrome, Chrome Web Store, and now of course Chrome Books.

We are 10 days away from the commercial launch of Chrome Books, which could be an inflection point or the reversal of the pendulum swing in the OS wars (windows watch out).

Google has been brewing a Quiet Storm to prepare for a giant main stream push. They have Gaga making TV commercials for Chrome, the Chrome Logo is refreshed for wider mass appeal, Angry Birds is in the Chrome Store, and now in 10 days the spearhead of their strategy : the 1st wave of Chrome Books will go on sale in Best Buy, Amazon, Gilt, etc

+++ Update: I just found a really good post that has links to the other 2 realy well executed/ emotional commercials for Chrome ... Check it out:

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/google-chrome-tv-ads-almost-bring-on-the-waterworks-2011055/

If i was Microsoft i would hurry like hell to get that next gen touch Windows 8 that we saw last week, out to store shelves, because in the meantime Chrome Books are about to break into America's imagination and start flying off the shelves.

How is Google, a nerdy brand, going to get America to view it as the next "cool" or "sexy" purchase that everyone needs to make you ask ? How about a TV ad Spot about Chrome with GaGa ? Maybe another GaGa commercial for Chrome Books (Rumour: coming in June ) ? TV ad spot is above

You can find a ton more Chrome related videos over here on YouTube, just lok at the "suggested videos" column on the right hand side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDPJ-o1leAw

But Most importantly, its all about Chrome Books standing up to all the hype. So here is the official Samsung ChromeBook demo video. Judge for yourself, but in my opinion they are UNDER hyped :) :

Design FlashBack to VCEL days

2011-06-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

This is post 2 in my VCEL flashback series :) Post 1 is here.

Thanks to Akhsar, we have unearthed some early print poster/flyer designs we used to educate users about the idea of mobile social networks when we were launching vcellvibes.com in 2006.

The designs were all done by Kyle Conroy , who is a software engineer at Twilio now (but back then was a high school student/ hacker/ graphic designer) :)

Thought its interesting to go back to beginnings and revisit the first software product/project i worked on. Allows you to think about all of the stuff you learned along the way, by contrast of what you are working on now vs this VCEL stuff :)

The other 2 flyers:

Understanding the Google Filter Bubble

2011-06-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

(image is a screenshot from eli's ted talk ppt. Link to it below)

According to Eli Parisers great TED talk on filter bubbles, Googl'es personalization algorithm has created a myopic perspective for each one of us, effectively creating a censorship bubble ( censorship because what info you get is decided by google, without any transparency to you. Also you are not immediately presented choices).

So how do they do it, how does Google strive to understand each one of us, so it can serve us what we like (and thus filter out everything else that maybe we might not like but is still good for us to see or know ? ) , apparently they tune their search results along 57 signals for each user. I wonder what they are ?

Fortunately i found some smart thinking on the subject by Rene Pickhardt, a Ph.D "WebScience" student. Check out his smart guess on what the 57 signals are:

http://www.rene-pickhardt.de/google-uses-57-signals-to-filter/
javascript:void(0)
Go check it out

Digital Censorship: Googazon+apple+facebook are creating filter bubbles

2011-06-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Brilliant Ted Talk !! Defines a HUGE problem that has snuck up on our society while we have been sleeping !

The problem is that too much personalization from all of our favorite web companies, in essence is a form of digital censorship. If google and facebook etc show you only what you "like" then how are you supposed to get the real news ? or get informed on topics that are uncomfortable, but necessary ?

Of course, we at XO, are hard at work in the lab working on a solution that will prevent filter bubbles in web search !

2012 year of Social Search

2011-05-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

Today Google is rolling out its social search produt (launched in 2009) to 19 more languages.

Combined with the launch of Google Plus One and Google Profiles this is starting to add up into a very concentrated push into social.

It comes down to perspective. What do people use to view the web ??? What do you see the web through, Google ? or Facebook ? I vote that it should be at most a 50/50 split

My gut sense is telling me that we are going to see a couple of mass consumer behavior changes or waves sweep through search over the next 3 -4 years. How we interact with Google will be revolutionized

#1. (Current Wave, medium wave) Too much Noise and not Enough Signal. Social Search will use social signals to cut through the noise.

#2. Interfacing with Google via Touch and Voice input vs mouse point and click paradigm. Google's paradigm of 1 -10 results on a page, will not hold on iPad 2 / Moto Xoom type form factors.

iPhone App Platforms: Social Stay is well executed

2011-05-22T18:49:00.000-07:00

I have been following the progress of SocialStay.com for quiet awhile. I got introd to them via John Greathouse, VC at Rincon Venture Partners, and then Akhsar (we co founded VCEL together) came on board to lead product R&D.

Social Stay makes mobile apps for hotels . So if you are running a hotel or managing one, you should get in touch with them.

It has been a pleasure to watch them execute an iPhone app generator platform over the past 6-7 months. The interesting part for me has been to watch a start up really focus on sales, marketing, and brand before worrying about the product. As a result not only does SocialStay have a good product at the end of the day, but they also have significant traction with early hotel clients.

Not a Happy Mac this morning :(

2011-05-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

++++Update: When restarting your mac hold down Option + Command + P +R clears your PRAM and NRAM

Not a very happy morning for the Mac Air. I didnt even know Macs had blue screens of death like this.

Long Story short: Keyboard and Trackpad just mystically stopped working. USB mouse and Bluetooth keyboard work fine though. Tried restarting a million times, then re installed from the included recovery USB..... still no results.

Now i am running the extended (hour long) hardware sweep via the Apple Hardware Test Utility .... press " d " when booting up (if your mac air keyboard doesnt work like mine dont worry you can get it to work via an external bluetooth one) ....

Space Shuttle endeavor pics from a plane

2011-05-17T20:26:00.001-07:00

A great Anecdotal story of why Image SEO optimization is important. I learned it in SEO class today. Since it is from very recent events, and Space related, i thought i would repost for your edutainment.

Here is the high ranking search result: (from Washington Post)

All credit for the photo to Stefanie Gordon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/nasa-sees-second-to-last-launch-in-shuttle-program-photos/2011/05/16/AF2bPz4G_blog.html

LiveLeak is back baby ! Version 1.5 is live in the App store

2011-05-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

LiveLeak V 1.5 is Live !

After a long delay, we are back. We heard the outcry from the community. After hundreds of emails, we finally got it together and fixed LiveLeak. It is now better and smoother then ever.

Also there is some fresh new LiveLeak content in the app i hear. Go get the new version from the app store :)

And as always much love to http://www.liveleak.com , dont forget to visit the actual site as much as possible :) The site has even more content then the app !

LiveLeak ChartBoosting Drudge2Go !

2011-05-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Check out this screenshot.

It's ChartBoost.com's new SDK ChartBoosting Drudge2Go inside the LiveLeak App. Pretty Cool ! Will report on Boost effects :)

Dan's start up concept already getting attention ! Brilliant.

2011-05-15T18:37:00.001-07:00

Dan Smith, a friend and one of XO's graphic/ui designer consultants, he made the current (May 15) xoapp.com design also came up with a cool concept for a social website service: FriendDept.com

Based on his good branding, maneuvers, he got picked up on Time inc's newsfeed site. Already getting a bunch of beta sign ups.

Go check out the Time article:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/12/double-date-new-site-helps-couples-find-friends/

Dan's friend networking website start up: Friend Dept

http://www.frienddept.com/index.php

Update: Here is a link to Dan's design portfolio

http://www.dansmithdesigner.com

ChromeNote or Google I/O keynote day 2: HUGE

2011-05-11T10:56:00.000-07:00

Googles stellar push into the NetBook OS space with Chrome OS / Chrome Web Store is on in full force:

- They finally finally launched 2 dedicated Chrome Books (Chrome OS notebooks)

- They have 160 million Chrome user base as is

- Doubling Down on the chrome store: In App Payments, Angry Birds onboard, better WebGL

- HTML 5 is definitely here to stay with Chrome. Demo of Speech enabled search on clicker.com

Here is the links to everything you need to catch up on the latest:

http://www.google.com/chromebook/#chromebooks

http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features

https://chrome.google.com/webstore

I am pretty sure todays Chrome Note will be marked as the beginning of the total decline of windows. Between Mac OS X market share growth, iOS, Android, HP Palm, and now Chrome OS ... what leg does windows have to stand on ? Price ? definitely not ! Quality ? definitely not ? Attractive for developers ? definitely not. The only thing going for windows is that they are still de facto. Soon to change though.

Visualizing 98 Billion Searches :)

2011-05-07T12:16:00.000-07:00

Found a super sweet Chrome Experiment:

http://data-arts.appspot.com/globe-search

A beautiful interactive visualizations of Google Search Volume by language.

You can Spin the globe. The interface reminds me of the wii News app .

Blog This Chrome Extension is awesome !

2011-05-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

I just found a great Chrome Extension that seems like i would actually use often:

Blog This! - The 1 click button to post the web page you are on to your blogspot.

Third-party Apps - Blogger Help

How i Roll: Mac OSX MultiClutch powered Gestures for Chrome

2011-05-06T17:38:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Adam helping me get going with MultiClutch,
i can now trace a series of crazy gestures on my touchpad and a million things will happen in my browser.

Go Get MultiClutch from this blog. Note: When you install you have to authorize MultiClutch to load in 32 bit format. Its a lil wierd, sequence of dialogue windows, but works out in the end.

Update: With the release of iOS 4.3.3 it seems like my jump to MultiClutch on my Mac is a cohesive embrace of more gestures in my daily computing experience :)

Flashbacks to my 1st products: 2005/06

2011-05-04T04:15:00.000-07:00

These were some of the products that we worked on at VCEL [ sold to fotochatter.com ]

+++Update: Just found one of my old posts that lists all of the Blog coverage we got for this:

VCEL blog coverage

++++ Update 2 (June 4 2011) : VCEL exit story

MySpace Mobile WAP site:

First MySpace Mobile Free J2ME app:

Some early Logo work:

XO Hot Air Balloon Ad concept

2011-04-28T23:12:00.001-07:00

What i did in Adobe Illustrator Class

2011-04-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

An illustration i made in ai class.

It illustrates the idea of automagically deep diving beyond page 1 to surface "good stuff " results that users might like for their current keyword query.

XO deep dive feature surfaces good results that are just below the visible surface of page 1.

FireFox 4 ads all over King Station. Kind of awesome.

2011-04-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

Since i started working out of Pier 38 a few weeks ago, i have been taking the caltrain into King Station, SF every morning.

Every morning i deboard a train to see king station covered in firefox 4 advertisments. Every pillar, the floor, flags, the walls are all covered with a clever messaging campaign designed to position Mozilla as a "force of good" that is competitive with the most modern corporations. It is playing up FireFox as the only non profit "good" browser option vs microsoft, apples, or googles choice.

ChartBoost Blog showing signs of life. Read it.

2011-04-14T15:34:00.001-07:00

Sean just sent me a link to ChartBoosts Blog:

http://bit.ly/fvUDaX

Check it out. Its actually an interesting post on the technology stack that it takes to run a modern start up. They delve into the realities of building a company on PHP, MongoDB, Amazon web services, MVC models, and tons of other tools, libraries that can save all you start up people a ton of time.

Enjoy a quality start up blog post.

RIP Flock

2011-04-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Flock.com

GrandPa & GrandMa. Thanks for launching the Gagarin Mission (:

2011-04-11T23:45:00.000-07:00

The Gagarin Mission 50th Anniversary Google Logo Salute.

Life of a Products Guy like me.

2011-04-09T21:46:00.001-07:00

http://www.linuxkungfu.org/images/fun/geek/project.jpg

FireFox 4 tells how to make Google more magical !

2011-04-05T01:38:00.000-07:00

An experiment with Xtranormal.com's "Text to Movie" service.

XO's alpha chrome store apps

2011-03-29T00:50:00.000-07:00

Finally got all 4 of the Alpha XO chrome webstore apps through the webstores review process.

We are testing 4 editions:

XO{Deal} (alpha+ version)

XO{Tech} (alpha version)

XO{Fashion} (Super early version)

XO{Lifestyle} (Super early version)

The UI is rough in a lot of places, we know it and are working on something beautiful and useful. for instance our great Facebook commenting feature is almost impossible to find. You have to click exactly on the 4 px little white chat icon in the bottom right corner of the XO search highlight. We will refine this UI issue shortly.

XO Office life begins today ;) Got a table at Opinno.com

2011-03-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

Today is Day 1 of what will be the office life saga of XO.

After going to Sean's and Maria's ChartBoost.com mini launch part last friday at DogPatch Labs... we were sold on joining this vibrant and awesome start up scene.

Also we had a meeting with the FreeStyleCapital.com guys on Friday here. They are sharp. Liked the conference rooms here.

Serendipitously someone at the ChartBoost party, Jason, introd us to the Opinno.com folks downstairs of DogPatch labs, Opinno is an international incubator. Most of the companies down here in the SF Opinno space are Spanish speaking ? its what i heard. Havent met most of them yet :)

Long story short we scheduled a meeting to discuss getting space for today.

Here we are 11 AM on Mar 28, and its Day 1 of XO's first day officially being an SF incubator start up instead of a Cupertino Garage start up ;)

It finally feels like a new Decade, Thanks Chrome 11

2011-03-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

Chrome 11 Beta is here. Screenshot above of my Mac Dock with it.

Its a big change visually since it transforms the icon you use and love every day into its next form, its chrome 11 form.

**The old logo on the left and the new logo on the right.

Bullish on Chrome Web Store (;

2011-03-21T00:36:00.000-07:00

I have been working with the Chrome Web Store Apps for 4 months now. Yesterday i discovered the above image, the one on the right is allegedly the brand new Chrome logo. Rumour has it, that the changes are preparations for a big media blitz to introduce Chrome OS devices to main stream consumers, and oh by the way push the Chrome Web Store and the Chrome browser to America.

Having experienced the beginning of the App wave on iOS as an original iPhone user and involved in the early app developer community, i can tell you the Chrome Web Store HAS NOT SEEN the Hyper Explosive growth of App consumption like the iTunes App store did in its first 4 months.

Despite this slow start i am very bullish on the future growth of the Chrome Web Store and Chrome OS.

Below, I break down the top 3 reasons why the Chrome Store has not exploded in app downloads yet. I break down the top 3 strategic OS moves Google needs to do in the Post PC era. IMHO, Chrome Web Store/ Chrome OS fit very nicely into overcoming hurdles that are preventing explosive growth of Chrome Store as well as combatting the competition in the "Post PC" OS wars.

Then i venture a guess at the size and timeline of the growth of the web store over through the end of 2011 and optimistically extrapolate 2012.

3 clear reasons for the lack of explosive growth of Chrome Web Store :

1.Chrome Apps have to compete with THE WEB and websites, a robust and flourishing ecosystem that users get and love.

2. The idea of "Web Apps" has not taken off yet.

- Yes FireFox Add Ons have 2.7 Billion downloads.

- Yes FireFox, Chrome, IE9, Safari 5+ all have extension support/ galleries for them

- No the consumer has not figured this out yet.

3. The Chrome Store is missing the key consumption point for its store, a DEDICATED CHROME OS devices. The iTunes App store would not have worked without the iPhone.

What 2011 will bring for Googles "Post PC" era strategy.

IMHO Google's strategy for staying relevant in the "Post PC" device era is 3 pronged:

1. Handsets: combatting iPhone with Android,

2. Tablets: combatting iPad 2 with Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets like Xoom,

3. Netbooks: combatting Meego/Intel's app up netbook os play with Chrome OS.

The preview of some really interesting and lustworthy Chrome OS Sony Viao devices, made me much more optimistic about some of the analysts predictions of 10 Millions Chrome OS devices shipping in the second half of 2011.

Chrome Web Store growth due to Chrome OS:

March 2011: My guess is we are still under 100 million Chrome Store apps installed.

Chrome OS Boost:

10 Millions devices x 30 Apps per device on avg = 300 Million apps

Advertising Campaigns (new Chrome logo is strong support for this) :

10 million curious chrome users exploring x 3 apps per curious user = 30 Millions apps

2011 total= 400 Million Apps installed

2012 Rough guesstimate = 2011 x 3 = 1.2 Billion apps installed

Whats the deal with QR adoption ? CEO of ShareSquare breaks it down.

2011-03-06T17:30:00.000-08:00

I found an interesting post by Matthias Gallica, an acquaintance and fellow founder/CEO.

I have spent time thinking on the same topic, since at TMD we spent some time thinking about QR scanning apps. It was great to see a refreshing take on the future of QR from someone who gets it like Matthias. Click through for a great post:

http://blog.getsharesquare.com/wild/how-microsoft-mobile-tag-and-att-are-killing-consumer-qr-code-scanning-in-utero/

P.S. Matthias is CEO/Founder of GetShareSquare.com . He is a graduate of the Founders Institute , LA too.

Exo PC Slate with MeeGo Tablet OS V 1.2 : Free gift from Intel !

2011-03-03T23:37:00.000-08:00

SF was jam packed with hordes of gamers and video game developers all week. Ive never been to GDC, but passing near the Moscone center in SF today you couldnt miss all the GDC commotion.

I attended a talk by Intel AppUp Appliations Lab: MeeGo Series . They gave out FREE MeeGo Version 1.2 Tablets. They gave out EXO PC Slates reflashed with Meego v1.2 instead of windows 7 . It was cool to see a company bend over backwards for us app developers (: about time we got some due credit (;

The Draw:

Its TRUE Linux, its Open source, its backed by Nokia + Intel ! It has potential.

The device was interesting. Had all the ports iPad and iPad 2 users daydream about : SD card slot, 2 USB ports, mini HDMI port, etc

The Catch:

We got 3 devices. 2 out of the 3 worked out of the box. Mine of course did not. It would freeze on a MeeGo logo and not get past the splash page. I wonder how many of the other ones that Intel gave out to Devs did not boot.

The Fix:

With lots of help from a savvy linux friend of mine, we got the latest .iso for MeeGo v1.2 from Intel's Developer site and then "byte copy" wrote it onto a 2 GB USB flash thumb stick drive, and then reflashed the slate . The trick was that the "byte copy" needed to be encoded at bs=4096 .

Stay tuned for a more complete review of MeeGo v1.2 and the exo PC as a Slate running MeeGo!

The serious BIOS screens we had to dive through :

When it finally started behaving well !

And we are IN ! Take that Boot errors ! :

Moto Atrix 4G/Web Top Unboxing

2011-02-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

So besides releasing the best Android Tablet on the market, Moto, took a stab at inventing a new category of mobile/portable computing. Allow me to introduce (or to most of you re-intro) the Moto Atrix 4G. I got the chance to use it for a couple of days, so ive put together another review for you guys:

What is it ?
1. kick ass 4G android smartphone from AT&T. The marketing claims its "The smartest smart phone on the planet"
2. "Webtop" Dock, which looks exactly like a thin profile laptop, to which you dock your Atrix 4G phone.

SmartPhone:
The device looks and feels well built in your hand. The back plate, seems to imitate a carbon fiber weave design on the back, but its very subtle. The power button is on the back side of the phone, and functions as a locking clasp for the casing. After living with iOS devices since 2007, its refreshing to see an iPhone 4 equivalent form factor execute a swappable battery design that functions well, gives you the ability to have a back up battery, and at the same time accepts no compromises on how the device feels in your hand.

The software on the phone seems to be pretty regular Android. The downside is that the apps tray is preloaded with tons of bloatware such as the Block Buster Video app, and other apps that i have no intention of using.

The novel part of the phone is the way it syncs with the "webtop" dock.

Webtop:
At first look you are wowed by the idea of a netbook like device being designed from the ground up to Sync with your beloved android device. But once you try to actually do something on it, you realize you are running the most crippled laptop OS in the world. The only chance i see for the Webtop surviving is if they do an update and make the device run on ChromeOS. I mean it ships with FireFox onboard? and the UI uses a windows paradigm, which results in the biggest clutter ever. Its unclear where you can install apps from, because the webtop zone failed to work for me. It did have some silver lining, in that having a direct 1:1 view of your phone on a traditional laptop screen/keyboard was kind of cool. Any of you devs out there that have used the Xcode simulator or even better an android simulator on your laptop will know what it feels like. Besides that there is a nice way to sort all of the windows you have open on your webtop into a "card" like view where you can deal with them one at a time and you can flow through the open windows to the left or the right.

The Modern Mobility Verdict:

The Atrix SmartPhone is a really good device. It has Ludicrous power, enough apparently to attempt to power what we consider a "laptop" experience.
The Webtop, software experience is wierd and clunky. The hardware is simple, sleek and functional. No complaints on the hardware. Drastically needs to upgrade to full on Chrome OS and really present a unified "google experience" front to the user here.

Product Pics below:

Moto XOOM unboxing

2011-02-24T18:37:00.001-08:00

I'm writing this review on a new moto XOOM. First of I am very impressed by this product.

Unboxing/ OOBE: Took 4:32

The hardware interface, and the welcome video and instructions were very well executed. The use of labels on the screen protector packaging to explain the button lay out was very clear and pleasant. Overall the welcome OOBE [ out of the box experience] was good. It required a single sign in, and was smooth. It found Wi-fi (since my test model did not come with a 4G sim card) very quickly. And after that zipped along.

Software:

Honeycomb zips along [click thru for a TC review of honeycomb] , 3.0 is getting to be a mature and usable OS. The integrated use of google services deeply at the center of the xoom user experience is well done. The gmail and google talk applications s are very well designed and highly functional. The photo gallery automagically knew about my blogspot blog that was connected to my google account. It was really nice that I had to sign in only once and my mail, blog pictures and google talk contacts were ready to go out of the box. Overall the smoothness of the software, thoughtful execution of "toasties" as notifications, multitasking, and pure speed are apparent .

Hardware:

The tablet feels very solid and dense in your hands. The dual cameras are just fun on such a big screen. The speakers leave lots of room for improvement. I found that when you are looking directly at the screen, the speakers are on the rear, so the XOOM projects the sound away from you. Its not ideal.

***Update: I will be reviewing XOOM accessories in a separate post.

The Modern Mobility Verdict:

Does it defeat the iPad ? I would say its getting pretty damn close. However, iPad 2 will undoubtedly bring improvements to apples tablet. So until then its hard to make a conclusion on which tablet is better. One thing is clear, there are now finally REAL Options in the tablet market. If you are a Droid Fanboy i would highly recommend the moto XOOM. If you are spellbound by Apple's more refined UI and closed system then iPad 2 is the one for you.

OK enough gushing. this is just a quick post. Still getting used to the android version of blogger app. Some product pics below:

Do you know what this is ? If you do come talk to me.

2011-01-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

Hint: The image above is made out of what is the most valuable currency online. If you own this, like Google does, you can make Billions.

As some of you know i have been spending more and more of my time working on XO!, Inc A search start up I co founded with Len Short

We launched XO Deal, an alpha product into the Chrome Web Store last week.

XO Deal is an early demo of how XO will complement Google and Bing's search offerings with another layer of useful information. A layer of information highlights, deal hints, and social annotation. In other words XO's mission is to highlight the good stuff in web search. For more info on XO read here. We think we are onto something huge here.

In light of the above, i wanted to put out a riddle . See the image above. If you know what it is please come talk to me. And no it is not a Jackson Pollock original.

Top woman 2O1O: my friend Ninette Murk + the usual suspects

2011-01-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

***Ninette is the 2nd from the left (: image taken from article post below, all credit to them.

I was very happy to find out today that Ninette Murk, a friend and role model of mine, just received some duly deserved recognition. Ninette is the founder and director of DesignersAgainstAids.com . She has ran this non profit for 7 years, and now is about to do her 4th year of their Fashion Against Aids campaign in partnership with H&M !! Its been a great success so far and i look forward to more years. Finally, she has been listed as one of top 1O women who have made a difference in 2O1O. Women who really go above and beyond the call of duty. Simply inspiring. Ninette is featured along side Oprah, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Palin [ yeah i know i know] , and other woman leaders.

Give it a read:
http://www.thedeadbolt.com/news/109632/top_woman_of_2010_feature.php

Ninette and i have been in contact since 2OO7 when she graciously participated in Flock Gloss, a Flock web browser edition i launched, it was focussed on the Fashionista vertical. Since then its been a pleasure to see her drive real change and impact. From bus stop posters, to skyscraper size billboards, to ads in Rolling Stone Magazine every time i see DAA or FAA it reminds of how much pure passion and determination is behind it all. [ disclaimer: on top of that i just like H&M as a retailer ( ; haha]

GamerFood.Com - its what it sounds like !

2011-01-04T00:10:00.000-08:00

My long time friend, traveling companion, and fellow entrepreneur : Chris Davis just launched a new venture.

GamerFood.com Go Check it out !

+++Update: Check out this review at Geekologie.com for GamerFood

He launched it with his brother Michael, and together they have put out a very impressive branding play in the healthy food category. GamerFood.com sells delicious and healthy granola bars. They are cleverly branded with names inspired by World of War Craft and Starcraft. Other games will be coming. This is an ambitious project, because the current trend in the niche is infusing drinks and snacks with tons of sugar and caffeine. GamerFood will turn the tide the other way, and transform gamers unhealthy snacking habits into a more healthy behavior.

Below is the Gamer Food creed. Feeling hungry ? Go PWN your Hunger at GamerFood.com

iPhone 6 UI possibilities

2010-12-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

Just came across a great engadget post about a 3D hand gesture/ hand wave sensing technology.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/22/elliptic-labs-set-to-save-your-ipad-from-smudges-with-3d-gesture/

After seeing Kinect launch and Sony Move controllers becoming pervasive i cant stop thinking about how cool it would be to shrink the camera tech to the point where you could have it embedded in the forward facing camera of an iPhone or android device.

The shortcomings of touch screen tech for mobile:
1. The biggest pet peeve i have about touch screens is that they dont work with gloves.
2. Second worst pet peeve is that the screens get a permanent layer of smudge, no matter how much you clean the screen.

The future solution: Waving/Gesture UI
1. Shrink gesture sensing tech into a cam that can fit on the forward facing side of an iPhone
2. Train the public to control their phones by gesturing and waving in the direction of the screen vs smudging their fingers all over the screen.

Drudge2Go: Launches update, is #43 in iPad Paid News apps

2010-12-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

Wanted to revisit a previous post i made about Adam's iPhone app Drudge2Go. Go download it in the iPad store or the iPhone store now !

Obviously its based on www.drudgereport.com and offers a nice iPhone friendly interface to consume this super popular news site. I have been involved with this app project as a "friendly advisor" since before it was branded/ submitted to the app store. It is always good to see app projects evolve and release updates.

Drudge2Go has a few nifty features such as smart "new" badges, a tab for "breaking" news, support for favicons for the content sources, and a clean Siren logo. Overall this new version is a very solid upgrade from the first version. It is strong step forward to being the best Drudge app in the iPhone and/or iPad app stores.

It got approved in the past 24 hours, and it already broke into the Top 5O. It is #43 in the iPad store's news apps section. Go download it and help it rise to the Top 1O !

Zoo Rescue: 5 star iPhone game by Sean

2010-12-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Wanted to highlight ZOO RESCUE !! Sean's new iOS game that he built for Tapulous , with the help of some awesome team mates. Its live in the App Store. I think it made New and Noteworthy today. The game is fun. Its a novel twist on the classic arcade helicopter game.

Its fantastic to see good friends produce amazing apps. It almost turns the app store into a sporting event, letting you root for their apps as they climb their way to fame. Anyways, enough blogging just go download it and play already !

Download the ZOO Rescue iPhone game here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zoo-rescue/id396514230?mt=8

Great source of Healthy living tips: OrganicJar.com

2010-10-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Sean's room mate blogs about healthy living tips on OrganicJar.com . Its a great blog

Check out this great blog, I found the articles on the front page very relevant . I just purchased 3 plants last week for the purpose of purifying air. At the store i wanted to know which type of plants purify air the best . This article on OrganicJar.com answers exactly that question.

It compared 28 plants for their ability to remove VOC out of the air. The results are a recommendation of the top 4 household plants for air purification.

Motorola Defy : Pre Release Unboxing/Preview

2010-10-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

Motorola Defy UnBoxing:

A friend brought over a Motorola Defy, since TMobile just tweeted that it will release the Defy Nov 3, seems like a good time to review it. Seeing the Moto Defy was pretty exciting because i remembered watching a video of the Defy where the devices "Water resistance" was tested. The Defy is Moto's entry into the "rugged & tough" phone category. Think something like the rugged Sonim phones

The Summary:

Overall i am decently impressed that Moto put together a solid product besides the Droid or iterative designs of the Droid. The Moto Blur software makes me feel luke warm about it , mainly makes me think why its not as good as HTC Sense. The hardware build is great, and based on the tests done by engadget [ see youtube video below] it seems like this is truly one tough and rugged phone. I can see this phone developing a small but loyal niche, a "tough and rugged" niche . The its your super social phone because of Moto Blur seems to be something that wont catch in my opinion.

Moto Blur Experience :
-Interface:
I like the idea of MotoBlur widgets. The social and weather widgets that are pre installed on the home screen are pretty nice. However they tend to create a claustrophobic feeling. Simply put i thought that the MotoBlur interface was a framework that had potential but the pre installed set up made it feel like bloatware.

- Set Up :
It was very clear that the OOBE [ Out of Box Experience] team spent quiet a lot of time working on the getting started experience. I especially liked the "welcome videos" and "how to " video touches.

However it wasn't completely smooth sailing. The issue with set up is that because of the T Mobile partnerships and the Moto Blur set up process the phone totally feels like bloater ware.

From T Mobiles side the app tray is chock full of random apps like Amazon Kindle, BlockBuster, etc I get that T Mobile still thinks its peddling J2ME devices where pre loading an app is the holy grail. That model made them alot of money, but in todays smart phone app marketplace world it just seems dated.

From the Moto Blur side the home screens are jam packed with widgets. And the user has to go through several pages before they get to the homescreen.

All of this really makes me think of the Mac vs PC "ready to go out of the box" commercials. It seems like Moto Blur/Android took a turn towards PC vs Mac.

The Hardware [ Build Toughness Factor] :

The build quality feels good in your hand. The build feels very compact and dense.

The rubbery plug on the headphones jack reminded me of my underwater camera.

The white/black two tone color scheme actually comes together better than i thought.

The camera flash is very solid, and the 5.O Mega Pix shooter is what you would expect from a device in this class

WishList [ Whats Missing ]

1. Where is the face time/Fring compatible camera Moto ?

2. Instead of making Bloat ware out of a great device why not simplify the android experience to something sleek and steam lined?

As they say "design perfection is when you cant remove anything else".

Engadgets Test of the "water resistance" feature :

Soviet Lunar program equipment pics

2010-10-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/18/visualized-the-hardware-of-the-soviet-lunar-program/

note: this pic is not of soviet lunar program equipment. Its Sputnik -1

TMD facebook group: an experiment in brain trust

2010-10-08T01:34:00.001-07:00

So Sean started a TMD facebook group yesterday, in light of the new features launch. The email went to my spam folder. A day later i noticed it and added 7 others. All iphone or droid developers, graphic designers, and products people. It is quiet the talent pool actually (: I think it is fascinating to see how facebook's new feature just created connectivity and VISIBILITY between 9 talented professionals that were previously connected only in that they all knew me or have worked with me on app projects. Now through facebook groups they all can see each other, ask the group questions, and generally interact. This new found visibility is what i call TMD's experiment in creating a brain trust.

Open Robot: my friends project for android robots

2010-10-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

Check out this Android-Arduino controlled Rover .

Remote control of robots and rovers from your super phone is definitely something that we need more development and innovation in IMHO

A question ive been asked over and over recently:

2010-10-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

Q: What are the advantages of native apps v web apps on iPhone ?

A: A Comparison Between Native Apps and Web Apps

This is from Appmakr.com's blog.

They are doing really well in the app generator business.

Gearing up for extension products

2010-09-24T00:59:00.000-07:00

Check out this great post about the new upcoming Google Chrome Web Store.

This is an interesting opportunity for developers. It maybe that Google will be able to translate its experience of successfully operating its Android Marketplace as a profitable developer eco system onto the browser ? Creating another web based app rush ?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/23/chrome-web-store-launch/

Finally: a Legit iPhone Glucose meter product

2010-09-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

Check out this great post on what i think is the first great Diabetes care product for iPhone on the Diabetes Mine blog.

I have explored making an iPhone Glucose metering app several times. There are several significant challenges in such a project, and we never decided to go through with it. However, that did not make the need for such a product and app any less, and now i am finally relieved to see what i think is the first high quality iPhone diabetes product and app.

The iBGStar meter and iPhone app

This product is made by Sanofi-Aventis. Based on their product marketing materials, please note that the actual app is not yet in the app store, the app design is excellent. It is very understated, simple and functional. The case design shows a clear understanding of mobility needs balanced against a patient's desire to not compromise their style or quality of life.

TMD's 1st Small Business app : Got Grease app

2010-09-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

One of TMD's app projects over the past 5 months has been to develop our 1st small business iPhone app for my friend's company Got Grease , a san francisco based grease recycling/ biofuel stock company.

*** As a side note Got Grease is San Francisco's #1 Restaurant Kitchen Grease pick up and recycling company.

Project Goal:

The purpose of the Got Grease app was to create an easy to use app for documenting service records.

Got Grease employee's would use the iPhone app to take photos as proof of service of oil pick ups and grease trap servicing. The app would then upload the photos to the Got Grease website, where restaurant client's could log in and find a record of all their service dates with photos to show the before and after.

Project Process:

So we built an alpha version for Got Grease and deployed it via Ad Hoc builds to several of their iPhones. The result was great in that we received 3 major pain points from the employees that rendered the app unusable in the day to day process.

We went back to the drawing board and re engineered the app to have a solution for each of the 3 pain points we identified in the alpha test. Now we are going to deploy a much improved Beta build.

Beta Version Improvements:

- Improved networking,

- Can support the upload of up to 4 pictures per service section

- Has an improved design and interface

- Remembers a users log in

- Does not require a network connection to take and store photos

- Has the ability to upload all of its stored pictures at once at the end of the day

Small Business Testimonial:

As the founder of Got Grease David say's " i think this app will be a huge hit for our business. I think the customers will love it as a customer service tool "

Start Up Intellectual Property article by John Greathouse

2010-09-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

Check out this great start up Intellectual Property article by John Greathouse, a mentor and friend from VCEL days.

It is in the new section of hacker news right now. Go and give it a thumbs up.

Intellectual Property – Worthless To A Startup, Priceless To A Big Dumb Company

Drudge2Go: App I Branded is "New & Noteworthy"

2010-08-31T13:59:00.000-07:00

Always great to see Apple giving love to iPhone apps you were involved with.
The credit here goes to Drudge2Go. Go get in the App store.

If you haven't seen this yet check it out, Drudge2Go is a simple yet effective iPhone app for DrudgeReport.com fans.

The app is made by my good friend Adam Mork , and within the first coupl of days got selected to be featured in the "New & Noteworthy" section of the News section of the app store in Itunes. I worked with Adam to brand this app ( : See how it came out:

Check out how apple picked to feature Drudge2Go. It is in the center of the screenshot.

Go download it