I love Sony Ericsson phones. They have one of the slickest interfaces on any phone I’ve ever seen. All of the options are exactly where I’d put them. They do a nice job of animating the menus without over-doing it. However, over the last two years, I’ve really struggled to find a Sony Ericsson phone that I want to keep as my primary cell phone.

I recently purchased the W810i as an upgrade for a loaner phone account we have at work (used for when people who don’t have their own cell phone travel or need one for a period of time). Before letting someone else use it, I thought I’d test it out for a week.

My week lasted 3 days.

The good:

• Great interface. Nice UI. Nice animations. Clear screen.
• Solid design.
• 2.0 megapixel camera - very decent for a camera phone (and with a flash).
• Buttons are very easy to use, even though they are small.
• Great navigation.
• Supports music (mp3 and m4a - probably others).
• Comes with a 128MB memory stick — more memory than I expected!

The bad:

• Just so-so sound quality.
• Micophone picks up some background noise.
• Camera lens has no cover.
• THICK (form factor).
• The phone likes to add in a “snow” type of sound-effect randomly.
• Volume controls are tough to use in a call.

It was on about day three that I found myself wondering what I was gaining over my Motorola Razr V3i w/ iTunes? — I didn’t come up with a good answer, other than I like the interface much better on the Sony Ericsson.

So back in the box it went and it’ll probably sit there until the next time someone travels and needs to borrow a cell phone. — Very sad.

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One of my favorite announcements from IBM/Lotus at Lotusphere 2006 appears to be picking up some speed. Jeff Eisen, Lotus’ chief strategy dude (that’s not exactly his title) recently was interviewed about the upcoming product that will allow you to take your entire Lotus Notes experience with you on a USB drive.

Rundown:

• Your full Notes experience is contained on the USB drive
• Plop the drive into your PC, wait for the icon to appear on the desktop, click it and go!
• Perfect for remote users who need to use multiple PCs
• Perfect for users who complain about taking their laptop with them traveling
• When you’re done, unplug it and your whole Notes experience is saved on the USB drive.
• Apparently, there is a 512MB minimum device requirement. The max depends on what all you put on Notes (I assume that you replicate to the USB drive like any other local folder on a PC).

Check out the video for yourself.

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I just posted a link on my DominoKeys site about a blog I check out often by Guy Kawasaki,
a dude who used to be a product evangelist for Mac/Apple and now finds
and funds some of the brightest ideas on the web. In short: he has my
dream job. (Well, if you could somehow throw Disney and WWE into that
mix.)

He posted a list of stuff he recommends this past week and much to my surprise, he listed one of the things I was going to mention in a similar posting:
Logitech Presenter

If you ever do PowerPoint (or Keynote) presentations, you need this. It has everything you need in a remote mouse/pointer/timer/thing. It has a timer to keep track of how long you have been talking (or have to go), easy forward/back buttons, a laser pointer and my favorite feature, the ability to go to a black screen (great for stopping people from looking at the screen when they need to listen). The thing has an awesome range, doesn’t need to be “pointed” at anything and has a USB adapter that fits neatly into the remote. Check it out! (Don’t buy direct from the manufacturer … you can get them much cheaper elsewhere.)

Guy’s post on that, led me to another thing that’s quickly becoming a favorite…

Retrievo

This search engine is quite smart. The interface is quickly becoming somewhat of a standard in mail and RSS reader applications and it lends itself perfectly to this type of a tool. I totally recommend trying it out. — Oh, and you can make your first search be the Logitech Presenter to find a better price than direct from Logitech.

Wow…. wasn’t that a nice transition?!

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One of the RSS subscriptions I check up on frequently is Guy Kawasaki’s blog. The ex-Mac evangelist turned web guru and investor always has an interesting perspective on things and usually leads me to some of the most interesting stuff on the web.

This time, it lead me to a site/tool called Coghead. You can check it out for yourself, but the short version is that they provide the ability to build web-based applications/databases easily. You drag-n-drop, create actions, map fields, etc. all from your browser.

Here’s the thing … their overview page has 4 screen shots that show just how easy it is to use the tool. After looking at these 4 images, I’m confident I could use it to build a vareity of applications we need to crank out at work.

Sure, I could do them in Domino … and probably will. But seeing this makes me continue to wonder why IBM doesn’t make Domino Designer MUCH easier to use for newbies. Its not like you can easily get training courses on Notes/Domino anymore. I know! I’m trying to send an employee in my group to some Notes Dev/Admin classes and I can’t find a company in the 5-state region who’s offering the classes. (Sidebar: my best lead so far is in Hunington Beach, CA … and if that’s the case, then I too, need a refresher course on Notes! )

So back to Coghead & Notes. I’ve thought for some time that Notes needs to have the following pieces added to it:

• Improved web server licensing (make it cheap for only web apps so ISPs pick it up)
• Support for PHP (I mean, a Notes form is a lot like PHP anyway in that you can have in-line HTML and a Notes field … same basic concept … let’s keep going)
• Support for mySQL functionality
• “Easy” button - an easy interface for creating basic application. Basically, blend the stuff on this Coghead site with the demos they’ve done of the Workplace Designer and you’ve got it!
• Some built-in AJAX tools
• Native Designer, Admin and Server clients for the Mac (of course I had to throw that in)

There are other things on my wish-list … but I really think that the ones above would help solidify them as a solid tool in the web-world.

If they don’t … a little start-up like Coghead might come out of no where to threaten them.

(Yes, there’s not a lot of mention about a security structure with this tool, or mail/calendar functionality, or groupware functionality … and Notes has all of that. I get it. — The point is that its companies like this that start out with a great idea, funded by a smart group of people and the next thing you know they’re everywhere! Don’t think for a second that people smart enough to pull this off don’t have a long, long list of functionality they’re going to put in this thing, a direction they’ll take and a list of companies they want to take on. — Who knows … Notes might be on that list! )

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Ever come across a link that seems stupid but then when you tell other people about it, it seems like everyone starts talking about it? The next thing you know, you’re walking past someone’s desk (someone you didn’t ever mention the link to) and see them on the site, checking it out!

That happened to me. Over this link where you can print free graph paper. I know, odd. But … apparently, some people are into it. Maybe you are. If so, enjoy.

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I love seeing the blue screen of death … now that I have a Mac, that is. That’s because I don’t ever have to see it on MY machine.

What’s more fun than seeing it on someone else’s machine? Seeing it on other computers that run stuff in public.

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When Apple announced their new 5G iPods I felt the urge to rush out and immediately buy one. Then I realized that I haven’t yet filled up my 60GB iPod, I think the screen brightness is perfect and I rarely need the extra battery life … so I really don’t need it.

And since the new ones are also a 5G (fifth generation) iPod, I really couldn’t justify spending the $$$ on a new one. When you factor in the fact that they’d let me download movies and their new games its even harder to justify. Now, I’m not complaining … I’d be really upset if this iPod couldn’t use some of the new features that will come out from Apple in the future.

But there’s one in particular that I DON’T get that I’m kinda upset about. The latest firmware update gives you the ability to jump to a letter of the alphabet in your song/artist/album listings … which is really handy when you have a ton of songs in there. For some reason, mine doesn’t seem to work as fluidly as the new 5G iPods in the store. It also DOESN’T have the full searching capability that the new one does. And that sucks!

And I’m not the only one to think that. There are plenty of others that do too. Like this guy.

So I’ll have to live without it. In the mean time, I can dream about what mine would look like with that feature on it. Probably something like this:

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Two years ago I was in Disney World when a Cast Member (”employee”) there showed me a very tall, thin tree. He pointed out that it was the largest tree on the Disney World property and told me it was a very special tree. He called it “Nextelus Maximus” or the “Nextel tree” for short.

That’s right, Disney and Nextel teamed up to build a tree that blended in perfectly to the normal backdrop of the Disney World setting but was actually a cell tower built to service the majority of the 55,000 Disney cast members who have Nextel phones issued to them (Nextel is used as the primary communication device throughout Disney).

Well, those trees are all over the place now (example ). I recently was driving to lunch with a co-worker who spotted one and thought it was a great idea. And it is! Its a great way to hide something like that. Anyone who’s ever been to L.A. can easily see how ugly phone lines, power lines, cell towers, etc. can quickly become when they grow quickly all over the landscape of the city.

Or for those of you in MN, head over to Hammel on THE-55 (highway 55) and check out their implementation of a cell tower … or possibly three towers: 2 cell and one water. Blagh!

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