Website for my ShortenURL application is at: http://code.google.com/p/shortenurl-csharp/.

The website contains both a binary and source download.  Please feel free to submit patches, improvements, etc.  Or just download and use.

Here’s a screenshot:

The application is written in C# and is available under version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL).  Please feel free to download and give it a try.

First off look at blogging for what it is, at it’s deepest core, it’s writing.  It’s conveying ideas using words.  Before the internet this was done on paper, before that stone.  People who have been thinkers always wrote down their thoughts and captured them using whatever medium was available to them at the time.  In some cases that was just telling a person, who then told another person, who then to..you get the idea.

In an era where we limit our thought capacity to 140 some-odd characters to send to the internet via a messaging system we “didn’t know we needed” it is possible to condense some thoughts down to this paliatable size.  But not all thoughts work in the confines of 140 characters or less.  Some require exposition, they require explaination and context.  Not everyone reads, listens, and watches the same stuff you do.  So sometimes you have to provide context for your thoughts.  Why did you have it, what led you to it, how did you arrive at a conclusion.  All these are important to the overall thought process, they can also be instrumental in accurately conveying that thought.

That’s not to say you can’t be a thought leader of some kind if you limit yourself to services like Twitter or FriendFeed (which Scoble has taken to doing lately).  Robert Scoble is blogging less and using FriendFeed more.  He has found a medium that works best for what he does.  Scoble understands technology, and he understand the it’s changing world quite well.  This is perhaps the outcome of being a part of that world for so long.  He watches so many avenues of thoughts from other people that he can see trends and routines a lot of people can not. Since he’s blogging less, does that make him less of a thought leader?  Probably not.  He’s simply adopting a new method for conveying his thoughts.  Will it work long term?  Well that’s what we’ll have to wait to see.  I for one thing that it might, but it’s going to be a few more years before you can not blog, write, or something of the sort and be a thought leader.  You have to be able to provide context, that’s hard to do when space is limited.

The reason I downloaded these Live CDs is so I could test other Linux distributions (distros) and check to see if they would work with my wireless device, since all the computers in my house run on the wireless network.  I can’t install a Linux distribution unless it allows my wireless device to work “out of the box” (without needing to download additional drivers).

Sadly, I have to report that attempting to install Debian’s latest stable version from a DVD or a Live CD, neither had my wireless USB adapter working.  Same goes for the Fedora’s latest (released just this month).  Also sad, my wireless USB adapter uses a chipset who has released driver source code specifically for Linux, so it not working on two major Linux distributions is disheartening.  Ubuntu seems to be the only major distribution that supports my wireless adapter from the get go.

There in lies the problem.  Wireless is now an important part of computing.  While my main concern is my desktop, none of the CDs I tried had my wireless working without major hoops on my work provided laptop either (Dell Latitude D830).  And wireless is pretty much standard on laptops these days.  Wireless has to work and it has to be painless.  Fedora had my wireless network working, but it wouldn’t find my wireless G compatible access point for some reason.  Even typing in the SSID (network ID) manually didn’t help get it to work.  The Debian Live CD didn’t even activate the wireless at all, and the install DVD said I needed to install firmware off of a removable drive, but it didn’t tell me where I could download said firmware.

Just to note, yes, I can do a google search to find the firmware.  And yes, I could install the distribution and then download, compile, and install the wireless device drivers manually.  I’m quite capable, but that’s not the point.  The point is that, since driver source code is available from the chipset manufacturer, it should be included already.  I understand something not working because of lack of support from the manufacturer, but when they are already making the them available in a Linux friendly fashion, why do I need to download, compile, and install?  Shouldn’t the distro handle that?  What if a non-geek has the same hardware I do, would you expect them to know how to compile?  Even if you do expect them to, they won’t do it.  They’ll simply move on.

Again, wireless needs to work out of the box, you can’t expect non-geeks to go and download wireless device firmware especially if you don’t tell them where to go online to find it.  I understand that the main reason this is still an issue is because manufacturers are not opening up their drivers or releasing drivers that can be used in Linux.  We’re in the year 2009, can’t we just please have the drivers so we can run the operating system we want to run?  I guess that’s a taller order than we thought.

Social news aggregaters have been around for a few years, one of the most popular being Digg.  Digg is one of the few that really aggregates a large number of topics under a single site.  Other aggregaters exist and some are even topic specific (like DotNetKicks).  Social news aggregaters allow news items to be crowdsourced and have only the most popular (and hopefully the most relevant) bubble up to the top of the heap.  This allow users to only grab the best (as decided by community) and never have to see the stuff that no one cares about (they can of course choose to browse these if they want).

So if I can subscribe to the RSS feeds of these aggregaters main pages, I can essentially only see news items that a large number of people deem important.  I’ve cut out the newspaper, CNN, BBC, almost completely (one would assume that links to these things would pop up on these aggregaters).  This means that I get real news and avoid the fluff.

Of course the downside to this is I am at the mercy of the masses.  Digg is a perfect example of a news aggregator that has become little more than a mouth piece for the American left-wing.  In fact, I had to stop using Digg altogether because it was so hard to get away from people spouting left-wing propaganda and refusing to listen to facts when presented from a different view point.  When that happens the news source becomes worthless.  It can no longer be trusted.  In order to have a well balanced news intake, one must look at all viewpoints to determine truth and accuracy.  There are ways around this, and I’m sure someone will eventually be able to come up with a aggregation site that can’t be gamed (or at least one that is difficult to game).

People have already (mostly) moved to getting their news online.  My local newspaper has raised it prices 2 times in recent memory in order to combat fewer print readers.  Long term, the general public will come to look towards the educated masses to help them select what news to read, most (if not all) of it will be done online.  The printed newspapers are attempting to hold onto their dying media with a tight grip, but it’s usually when you hold on to something tight that you start to you lose your grip on it.

If you read this article from CrunchGear, you’ll see that the article and the people commenting that “physical media is dead” and pointing to the fact that they “stream from netflix” or “use bit torrent” to watch their movies.  And while this is most definitely the case, that geeks are streaming/downloading movies more than buying them, the rest of the non-geek population is not.  We as geeks live in our own little world and regularly forget that the rest of the world doesn’t think like us.  They also do not (for the most part) act like us either.  Which means, when they want to watch a movie they either buy it from the store, rent it from Blockbuster or Netflix, or watch it on Pay-Per-View off their cable/satellite boxes.  Watching on Pay-Per-View is about the closest to streaming a movie onto their television that the average consumer gets.

The average consumer of audio/video mediums prefer having the physical media.  That’s just how it is.  Now, in reference to this and the article’s attack that people aren’t buying Blu-Rays I say if that was true, the Blu-Ray section at my local best buy wouldn’t take up an entire front and back of a very long store shelve.  Also, people aren’t buying Blu-Rays because they cost more than DVDs and in case you forgot, we’re in a recession and that means that people are watching their spending.  If they can get a movie for 12-15 dollars on DVD or spend 25-30 on a Blu-Ray, chances are they’re going to buy the DVD over the Blu-Ray.  And since the report in the article mentions that people are buying fewer DVDs, in this particular recession it looks like that most people are opting against both movie mediums.  We’re in a recession, so people buying less is no great shock, but lets keep it in mind when we’re looking at the purchasing of a non-necessity okay?

Just to reiterate, physical media is not dead.  It is also not dying like we geeks think it should.  The average consumer is buying fewer DVDs and skipping Blu-Ray because we’re in a recession.  Before you count physical media as having bit the big one, consider all the pieces.

FriendFeed’s been around for a nice little while. You might have even heard someone mention it. It’s a little like Twitter in that people will at first, have a hard time understanding it. But it is a nice and interesting way crowd source news.

And that’s where FriendFeed’s shining gem lies. As people get on the service and begin marking “Like” on different articles and share various findings from the web you can find a lot of interesting articles on a lot of topics. Everything from information on the latest Iran election riots to iPhone news.

With all this in mind, using FriendFeed takes some getting used to. It’s different than Twitter. And it requires a lot more than just casual observence. You have to read the articles and “Like” things and comment on items as well. You have to be involved.  While I don’t have the time to focus on it full time like some people do, it is a nice way to see what’s going on.  If you utilize it’s Groups feature you can really segregate your news by subject.  But it still works best when you follow people that talk about the things you’re interested in.  That is where you will derive the most value out of the service.

I’m hoping that over time I can really come to understand the full power of FriendFeed and find a way to integrate it into my daily online routine.  This is going to take time though.

While the application looks fantastic, it’s buggy as all heck.  I had random crashes when trying to add users to a tab I had just created while viewing their profile.  It would randomly crash when loading a tweet or a user.  But also, it didn’t handle refreshes in a way that made sense.  I would see new tweets when I had the app open, but if I closed the app and loaded it up a few minutes later after doing something else, those tweets I saw when I was in TweetDeck would be gone when I came back and sometimes would not be shown after the app refreshed the tab.  Missing tweets don’t work well in a twitter app.  Finally, the lack of a landscape keyboard option is almost a deal breaker for me.  With how much I tweet from my iPhone I need a landscape keyboard option, since I type faster and with more accuracy that way.

I’m sure I could have gotten over the missing tweets thing, it might even have been user error, but the random crashes really made the app unusable.  Combined with the lack of landscape keyboards and you’ve really got an app I just can’t  use.  So for now, I’m sticking with Tweetie.  There’s a reason that it’s one of the top iPhone Twitter apps even though it cost 3 bucks to purchase.  It’s a solid app and easy to use.

Did you install TweetDeck to your iPhone?  What do you think?  Are you having similar experiences to mine or are yours completely different?

Allow me to explain myself.  You see, I’m a long time geek.  When I get a cool new device I make it my goal to trick it out with third party applications that help me to get through my day.  On my early smartphones, this was mostly games.  As I’ve grown and moved into more professional realms, the games still get installed but I also look at other productivity increasing applications that help me do my job.  The thing is, that in order to install these third party applications (and games) you had to know where to go and download/purchase them.  If you weren’t geek saavy, you couldn’t do this, more specifically you didn’t know where to look to find the applications.  I have installed cool applications on many a persons phone over the years only to have them go “Wow, that is so cool” and they ask if there are other programs out there.  The answer was always “yes” but it was followed by long winded instructions on where to go to download the apps and having to instruct them to call/email me if they had problems.

Apple really helped change all that with their iPhone App Store.  Now smartphone users (many first timers) had a single place they could go to browse, purchase, and install applications on to their devices.  No longer did you have to be overly geeky to install cool applications on your phone.  No more reading hundreds of forum posts, how to articles, and countless hours spent searching for applications to install.  All you have to do is click the “App Store” icon on your screen.

I’ve long said that “Apps sell a device” but if people don’t know how to install those apps, it causes problems.  A user (someone non-geek) needs to be able to find, download, and install the applications on to their phone(s) without hassle.  Apple’s App Store did this.  So Apple didn’t just change the game on the smartphone genere, they changed the rules for third party applications as well.  Single click install is about as simple as it gets.

So what about they Android Market (G1 App Store) and the BlackBerry App Marketplace?  While they don’t look as good as Apple’s App Store, they are pretty darn close.  But they nail the general concept pretty well.  The main point is to give everyone a place where they can go to search for, download, and install applications on to their devices with as few clicks as possible.  Both of these other stores do this.  Now, my wife, who is decidedly non-geek can go search for an application and have it installed on her app fairly quickly.  This not only gives her a sense of freedom from me having to do things like this for her, but it frees me from having to worry about her installing a bad app.  It could still happen, but the overall chances of it happening are greatly reduced.

While the applications one can install on a device will always help sell a device, a user needs to be able to install those applications without a geeks assistance.  With the invention of these app stores, we’re pretty much there.

The article even mentions that USA Today might go to charging for the app along with a digital subscription cost. As a regular user of the USA Today iPhone app, I can say that for them to go this route is a horrible idea.

For starters, most major news can be had for free, and from a variety of locations too. If USA Today began charging for their iPhone app, I would immediately remove it from my iPhone and begin looking for a replacement news application. Secondly, USA Today has one ofthe finest news applications on the iPhone so it would be a great loss to the free app community in the App Store. And finally, USA Today got the whole thing right. Their app allows one to easily share via email, Facebook, or even Twitter. They fully integrated into the social media space with their iPhone app. At the moment, no one else has figured this out quite like USA Today has.

I think that this is a nice exampe of the printed newspaper medium trying to hold on to the current revenue model rather than finding another way to monetize. I can get most of the same news available in USA Today for free online so I really can’t justify paying them for digital delivery.

Being someone who is all three; a geek, iPhone owner, and AT&T Wireless subscriber, I have to ask: Why is there so much hate for AT&T.  And I’m not really focusing on the whole iPhone 3GS pricing.  I get the arguments there (both for and against).  But I’m more focused on peoples hatred for AT&T Wireless’ service.

A Little History

Let me start by saying, I live in the Houston, Texas area and others people’s mileage may vary.  I’ve used just about every current cell provider on the market today.  The only exception is T-Mobile, because they’ve never had good service where I’ve lived.  I was on Verizon when they bought out GTE mobile down here in Texas, and at the time I lived in Simonton, TX (about 30 miles West of Houston and 10 miles South of I-10).  The service bit.  You were lucky to get a single at all and keep a conversation online for longer than 15 minutes at a time.

I then switched to Sprint, mainly because most of my friends at the time had the service.  Even convinced a few people to swith to Sprint.  This was when Sprint wireless was known as Sprint PCS and its service was actually decent in most major cities and off major freeways.  Over the 5 years I was on Sprint, the service in the Houston area degraded more each year.  To a point where I would be in the middle of town, on a major road and lose a call multiple times.  Also, calls had a tendency to not come through to my phone at all.

In 2003-ish (maybe even 2004) I switched to Cingular Wireless (knowing that they were going to buy AT&T Wireless in the next few months).  I originally wanted to go with AT&T due to fact that a touring musician (someone who had just spent a good year touring the country) told me that the only person who always had a signal was the guy who had AT&T service.  But when AT&T asked for a rather large deposit, I opted for Cingular (post AT&T purchase news).

The Verdict

Instantly I knew I had gone with a service that was going to make me happy.  I could make a call from my home in Simonton with zero issues.  This encouraged my parents (on Verizon at the time) to switch to AT&T.  My father, who was traveling all over the southeast region of Texas for his job had signal where ever he went, making him reachable.

The end result was the entire family switching to AT&T.

So Why the Hate?

So I have to wonder, why is there so much hate for AT&T’s service?  In my personal experience (and those that I have convinced to switch to AT&T) I couldn’t be happier.  I can make and send phone calls, get internet service on my phones, and my phone works out in the country (where my parents still live).  I have been all over the state of Texas and have had little to no issues when it comes to connectivity with AT&T Wireless.

One thing I’ve noticed when people complain about their AT&T service is that they never turn their phones off (even for a few seconds).  Doing this each day ensures that your phone has the latest tower information (this confirmed by multiple AT&T support reps at various levels).  When you’re phone turns on, that’s when it gets tower information, if you don’t do this regularly, you’re reception will begin to tank.

I understand that a lot of the issues with service have to do with region.  Some areas a different provider is going to have better service.  But from my experience, AT&T Wireless has been some of the best wireless service I’ve ever had.  Especially when it comes to the whole “more bars in more places” thing.  I have pretty  consistant service wherever I’ve taken my AT&T phone.

Now the bad.  Apple announced a new iPhone.  The iPhone 3G[S] (the ‘S’ stands for “speed” apparently).  The major differences between the 3G[S] and the current 3G models are the following

• Faster processor
• Faster data speeds
• Digital Compass
• 3 megapixel camera
• Voice Commands
• Video recording support

So the new processor, faster data speeds, compass, and cameras are all hardware based.  But why on earth would you deny current customers the ability to use voice commands and video recording.  The current model iPhones can already handle video.  If you have jailbroken your iPhone, simply install the Qik app to see what I’m talking about.  Not only does the Qik app record video, but it streams it too.  And my last 3 phones (2 of which were not smart phones) had voice commands so it can’t possibly take that much processing power to utilize.

I understand Apple wants to entice people to upgrade, but those are some lame features to try and entice users into upgrading to the new iPhone.  It’s not the same as going from the iPhone to the iPhone 3G where there was considerable upgrades to the phone’s abilities.  I guess what will really sell me on the new iPhone 3G[S] is the apps that utilize the compass and video camera.  What got me to jump from a BlackBerry to the iPhone was the apps.  So if I can be shown convincing apps for the new iPhone hardware, then I can be swayed, but as it stand right now.  I’m not impressed and see zero reason to upgrade.

My last journey into Linux was about 3 years ago when I ran it at home for a solid year or so. The Linux world moves a lot faster than it use to so i figured now was a good time to jump back into its waters. I began by installing OpenSUSE. The reason being is that it was sponsored by Novell and I really want to focus on Mono and have full compatibility with the Mono stack. Since Mono is also sponsored by Novell, I figured it would be my best bet. While I was in fact able to have the latest version of Mono (even used a nightly build), configuring other parts of my system were more complicated than they needed to be. Specifically I’m talking about wireless networking.

In my house, all the computers connect wirelessly. The router/AP is in the center of the house (in the entertainment center) and gives decent signal to the rest of the house. I hadn’t always been connected wireless, this is a recent development that came about due to the birth of my son. Having wireless connectivity is now essential to my set up. OpenSUSE required that I compile and load the wireless drivers manually. While this is fine, and it is a process I’m comfortable with, I knew there had to be a better way.

Enter Ubuntu. The last time I ran Linux, I had ran Ubuntu. While I can’t remember the exact version, I’m pretty sure it was at the most 7.04. Back then, wireless connectivity wasn’t perfect either (better than most other distros though). But having read that the latest Ubuntu (9.04, Jaunty Jackalope) was getting rave reviews, I decided to burn off a live CD to see what happens. Behold, the second it booted into the live CD environment, and I saw the list of wireless networks, I knew this was how it should be. Bye, bye OpenSUSE.

The lesson learned here is that Ubuntu, which has set out to be the distro for everyone, really does seem to be the distro that “just works” on most computers and most hardware. I did not have to manually compile wireless drivers and load them into the kernel, the network device just worked from the get go. Sure, I’m going to lose out on using the absolute latest Mono (unless I want to compile my own, which I could do), but my system works without having to jump through hoops. To me that’s a big step in getting people to like Linux. You can’t expect people to have to compile custom drivers in order to get something like wireless networking operating. There is something to be said for having a Linux operating system that “just works” from the point of installation on.

Now, to be fair, the rest of my OpenSUSE experience was good. The wireless configuration just really annoyed me. I also found that the user community for OpenSUSE was lacking compared to Ubuntu’s. Not sure why that is, but it was my observation. My wireless issues might be resolved in 11.2 version of OpenSUSE, currently in beta, and if that’s the case, I might switch back. It seems to be easier to manage alternate repositories in OpenSUSE than it is in Ubuntu, making it easier to install newer versions of software.

While having the latest and greatest version of some software is not always important, when it comes to development libraries it can be the difference between a lot of code and a lot less code. For now, the version of Mono in Ubuntu is usable so I can live with it.

1. Was easy to use
2. Had decent iPhone integration
3. Gave me the most features for free

With those three objectives in mind, I set out about my task.  The contenders ended up being

• Remember the Milk
• reQall
• ToodleDo

Lets look at these services in a little more detail.

Remember the Milk

When I decided to start using an online task management system, I immediately went to Remember the Milk and accessed by long standing (but mostly underused) account.  Recommended to me by Derek Alfonso when the service was first introduced years ago, I figured this would be the only stop I needed to make.

As you can see, the interface is very simple, non-intrusive, and makes it easy to see what you need to get done.  The interface is no-frills, but very powerful.  When I moved onto the iPhone app, things only continued to be awesome from an interface perspective.  The Remember the Milk iPhone application is as simple to use as its web counterpart.

Best thing about the iPhone application is it that it’s a free download.  But that’s where things start to turn sour for Remember the Milk.

When it comes to iPhone integration, the application is free, but you can’t use it without a Pro Remember the Milk account.  The cost on a Pro account is $25 a year.  While not excessive by any means, you don’t get much more than mobile phone integration (at least at this point).

To me, this was the largest turn off for Remember the Milk.  I can justify a $25 a year membership fee if I get something for it.  I pay for Flickr’s Pro account service because it basically gives me a place to back up my photos online.  However, RTM (Remember the Milk’s popular internet shorthand) only really gives you mobile integration.  We’re almost a full decade into the 21st century and I have to pay for mobile integration and not much else?  Sorry but no dice.

reQall

After being soured by Remember the Milk’s need for a pro account to use their iPhone app, I continued my search and found reQall.  The first thing I immediately checked was if they had an iPhone application (which they do), the second thing I checked was if I had to pay anything to use it (I didn’t).  So right away I had fixed at least 1 issue I had with RTM.  I began to use the service post haste.  The interface for reQall is only slightly more complicated than Remember the Milk, but only because they try to do some automatic organization for you.

For example, if I type in a task like “Buy AA Batteries” it will add that as a task, but will add it to a “Shopping List” task list.

The web interface for reQall works great even if it might look slightly more complicated that Remember the Milk.  Also, reQall lets you sync with Google or Outlook calendars, call a number to enter tasks by phone, and gives you a lower end version of what they call a “memory jogger” for free.  The pay version ($25/year) gives you some additional features like an improved “memory jogger,” geo-based reminders, and adding items via email.  So right away, you get more for free from reQall than you do from Remember the Milk.

With some tasks entered in via the web interface, I downloaded the iPhone application.  Right away I noticed that i could add tasks via text and voice.  I also noticed that i was in trial mode for “pro” services, so I got the additional features for 30 days.  I added a few more tasks from the iPhone and liked the integration.

I thought I had a winner here with reQall.  They offered quality services, for free and allowed me to use my iPhone to interact with the service.  These guys hit all three of my requirements.

ToodleDo

While I figured I had a winner with reQall, I decided to google search for other online task managers.  Doing so, I came across ToodleDo.  Apparently I already had an account with ToodleDo that I had forgotten about (probably found them originally through LifeHacker or some other productivity website).  Once I logged in, I noticed the straight forwardness of the web site.

Somewhat similar to Remember the Milk in simplistic interface design, I could easily see that ToodleDo could be used in a much more powerful way.  The sight focuses heavily on a “Getting Things Done” approach to task management.  Tasks work inside contexts (“Work”, “Home”, “Phone”, etc) and can be a part of a much larger goal.  This made sense to me because I didn’t just want a random list of tasks, I wanted to be able to sort them with larger tasks/goals.  I tried entering tasks and found the interface to be easy to use but slightly more complicated than I would have liked.  For example, when adding a task, if you do not have a goal set up, there is no way to add a new goal and set the task being entered to that newly created goal.  You have to finish creating the task, then go create the goal, and finally set the task to the goal.  So the interface could be connected a little better.

As far as overall features, ToodleDo has a ton of them.  They have some of the same stuff reQall has, it does lack the intelligent adding of items to their appropriate lists (adding items to a shopping list).  The interface also isn’t overly refined like reQall or even RTM.  But what it lacks in interface, it does make up for in available features and service plans.  If you’d like to see a comprehensive comparison list, they have taken the liberty of creating one for you.

The next question was iPhone application.  Yes, ToodleDo does have an iPhone app.  The downside however is that it costs $3.99.  So while the service offers up a ton of free features, to use a native iPhone app, you’re going to have to pony up some cash.  While I initially found this to be a bummer, I discovered their iPhone ready website (what they call “slim”).

As you can probably tell from the image (left), the iPhone web version looks pretty nice (even though the screen capture is in Firefox).  In Safari, on the iPhone it looks pretty slick and allows me to quickly view my tasks and add new ones.

While it is not a native iPhone application, it does allow me almost the same functionality as the native application.  A plus side to using Safari is the ability to utilize the landscape keyboard that is currently not available in most native applications allowing me to type in tasks and make edits much more quickly.

After using ToodleDo for a couple of weeks, I completely abandoned reQall (actually deleted my account) and went to using ToodleDo exclusively for my task management.  I haven’t completed all of my integration (ie Outlook & Calendars) but I’m working my way there.

Conclusion

After all is said and done, I’m using ToodleDo to handle my tasks.  While I would have loved to use Remember the Milk, I couldn’t justify the cost when considering what that $25 dollars a year would get me.  Especially when compared to what other services are offering with their free accounts.

Remember the Milk is getting by solely on name recognition and as an incumbent.  As proven in my research, there are other services offering more for free and even the other services pay accounts offer at least some justification for their price.  Remember the Milk has a nice service if all you need is task management and don’t wish to integrate with too much.  However to really use the service in an effective way, you pretty much have to pay for it.

While ToodleDo didn’t meet all of my expectations in a manner I would have liked, it did meet them.  I have a service that I can use fairly easily (even with it’s interface hiccups) and has decent iPhone integration.  Is it the native app I would have preferred? No, it is not but that option still exists if I want to spend $4.  Right now, I’m doing just fine with the “slim” version running in Safari.