Mobile and Internet

New personal blog

2009-04-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'm moving all my personal blogging to one centralized blog at www.valtoloikkanen.com

Nokia 6208 Classic with touchscreen and keypad

2008-12-29T01:21:00.000-08:00

What's interesting in this new Nokia Phone, is that having both, the traditional keys and touchscreen. This way it may be easier to get new users more comfortable with the touch features.

Also this could be the first touch-Nokia with Series 40 software.

Nokia 6208 Classic has a touchscreen and an alphanumeric keypad » Unwired View

As Cash Stops Flowing, Venture Capitalists Get Creative - WSJ.com

2008-11-28T23:23:00.000-08:00

As Cash Stops Flowing, Venture Capitalists Get Creative - WSJ.com: "As venture-capital funds face a cash crunch driven by the financial downturn, they are taking extreme measures to ensure they can fund their investments.

Some venture capitalists are selling their equity stakes in start-up companies at fire-sale valuations so they don't have to keep funding those businesses, allowing them to husband their remaining cash for other investments."

--- I'm so glad we will be launching the www.growvc.com solution

two finger scroll not working in new macbook?

2008-10-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

On the weekend I got myself a brand new Aluminium MacBook 13" 2,4 GHz. After moving everything from my old mac using the migration tools provided almost everything were working. Some tweaks here and there with some applications, but all and all, it was pretty easy.

One thing was not working with the multi-touch track pad and that was two finger scrolling. Luckily with Google's help I find the fix quite easily from this threat.

If you are having same problems with your new MacBook, this is the simple fix:

1. Open Terminal application
2. Type: defaults write -g com.apple.trackpad.scrollBehavior 2
3. Log out (from apple menu)
4. Log back in

Done.

Working with one new venture

2008-09-17T02:16:00.000-07:00

I have been busy working with one new business venture Grow VC and just wanted to share that.

Grow VC is a new international Venture Capital business model and Internet service to help early stage start-up's to secure initial funding for their business idea. At the moment, we are fine tuning the business model details and setting up this service.

We are also looking for interested parties to get involved and help this concept get some visibility, to help increase curiosity towards this new service and for that purpose we have also setup a "Grow VC - Supporter Group" to LinkedIn.

If you like the idea that next Google, Facebook or Apple, would become a reality because of you, then we would like to invite you to join our group.

At this time we are not yet sharing the actual service or business model. That will be done later when the service will launch and for our supporters a bit earlier (under NDA).

Website: www.growvc.com

Google Chrome - the web browser as Google envisions it!

2008-09-01T23:05:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the word was out that google will be launching a new web browser today, called Chrome. It will also be open source, like Firefox.

Why are they doing it? the official explanation is:

Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web. All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.

If being google, I can imagine that they would have tons of ideas that they would like to see in a browser. While you are supporting other browsers, you may as well put your own browser out as well.

Here's how it will look by default

Leaning on open source model with such a huge userbase combined with kazilillions of developers and companies that already rely on Google as their "host" for ads, email, document, images, videos, etc. etc. It will take no time to get this thing flying.

Whos's to loose?

This will be specially hard for Microsoft, that I expect to be the biggest looser in browser world (among other things). They are the only one from the "main players" where their business model for market share is not based on "pure choise". What I mean with this, is that their browser is "default" in majority of computers today (sure Apple does that as well, but with much smaller marketshare in computers).

So if we look at the choice options today, that sector is been dominated by Firefox. Now there will be one notable new player in the cloud (if you will).

If we look at the "Mobile and Internet" scene as a whole, we can clearly see that the battle is heating between Apple, Microsoft, Google and Nokia. (See what the app store has started...)

I think that the biggest losers overall in this joint M&I (Mobile and Internet) game, will be Microsoft & Nokia, since they both (as organizations as a whole) lack innovation and speed of implementation. Google and Apple have both and they also have genuine loyalty from their users (based on choice). Nokia and Microsoft are playing the "big market share" game, trying to bully around.

How would you split their market shares in M&I sector, 5 years from now?

UPDATE: Google Chrome will be available to download noon PST today.

Xobni - makes me wish I would still be using Outlook for email

2008-09-01T07:58:00.001-07:00

It's a shame that I have moved all my emailing to Gmail. If I would be using Outlook, this would be my tool for sure.

I hope Google will just buy them and implement to gmail.

clipped from www.xobni.com

It's a whole new look at your email:

Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that saves you time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments.
After a quick install, you'll see the new Xobni toolbar appear in Outlook - and suddenly information will become much easier to find. When a new email arrives, the sender's full communication history appears in the Xobni sidebar, including past conversations, attachments and contact details. Xobni also includes a blazing fast email search tool.

Download Now
Xobni is free and available for immediate download.

Share it on YouTube

Test

2008-08-27T23:01:00.001-07:00

Testing clipmarks add-on for firefox

clipped from tinyurl.com

Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you've come to the right place. By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.

First 10" Netbook with build-in 3G HSDPA

2008-08-26T23:33:00.000-07:00

I have not covered Netbooks in this blog yet, because trying to stick with Mobile and Internet theme, not Mobile or Internet ;)

Well - not. Sure I will cover both separately as well, but most of my Netbook stuff is in my other blog. This one however I want to mention right here. The "first" Netbook with build-in 3G modem the - FTEC eeBook G10X-3G - ECS G10L. Also cleverly named eebook (naming is easily understood if you take a look at the search trends for eeepc & netbook) I just wonder if Asus will be all quiet about that.

I have had my customized eeePC with build-in 3G for several months now (thanks to JKK for the modification) and I could NOT imagine having netbook without 3G - what's the point?

With build-in 3G, this is the way all netbooks should be, so we can start saying those are Mobile. Looking at the eebook local price for 10" 3G version, that seems to convert to 595 in USD (Windows XP Home Edition).

More details at UMPC fever.

Via JKKMobile

Cameras turning into phones

2008-08-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

I guess this could be a follow-up post to my "The day when a phone became just another application.." post. So this "Digital camera manufacturers are fighting back" has also been expected. Why should they just let the Mobile Phone manufacturers eat up their business.

When people want mobile device that is build around quality camera functions first and phone second, why should they wait and wait for that to come out from phone makers. Put 1 + 1 together and you can can start seeing this happen. First Casio who next?

Mobile playground is not for phones any more --- Just wonder when do we stop calling these phones?

I just hope this does not lead to this.

iPhone + Newsstand RSS reader - match made in heaven

2008-08-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for perfect RSS reader to your iPhone - then Newstand from omz:software is your answer.

Don't worry that there is no lite or free demo version for this in the app store, I can promise that this will be the best 4,99$ you can spend on a RSS reader (that's 3,40 in euros ;).

Newsstand is a full-featured RSS reader for your iPhone with a unique interface. Skim over the latest headlines on a beautiful shelf of newspapers and magazines in landscape orientation or use the powerful Mail-like view in portrait mode to read and organize feeds.

To see it in action you can see video at the omz website.

This thing is all about the looks, and people are giving it full stars on the app store, so no worries just go and grab one for yourself.

iPhone is bigger than Nokia....

2008-08-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

I want to highlight a post that I did to my other blog at www.pimpmyumpc.com. I did some comparisons between various search trends in mobile computing terms and brand names, using Google trends.

I think the results are quite interesting and worth a look if you want to know how the big and not so big terms compare. Do you know what term is more searched Netbook or eeePC? Or can you guess what wast the most popular search term I could find? Go check it out.

The day when a phone became just another application..

2008-08-25T01:44:00.000-07:00

For me that day was 11th of July 2008.

For a long time, there has been talk about phone becoming "just another application". Talks about this begun to increase when VoIP started to move towards mainstream, as an application in PC's. Before that, we had seen phones primarily as devices and still majority of people do.

In past years, mobile phones have been "sucking in" new functions from other devices, like Radio, PDA, Camera, Camcorder, Voice Recorder, Music Player and lately as Navigators and Media players, including video. While "phones" continue in this path, at the same time Internet is starting to present bigger part of overall use with IM, Email & Web Browsing.

Now when "phones" are trying to go as far as swallowing TV (could end up to be too big) to be included in these small extensions of our persona, it's becoming clear that we really should start seeing the "phone" part of these devices, as just another application. And if you look at the iPhone, it could not be more obvious (can you spot the phone in my apps).

So what's an iPhone? - From users point of view, it's just a great Media Player with innovative web browsing capabilities and with a simple Phone application included. So it's something totally new and different "that also includes phone as well"

It's very interesting to look at this setup between Apple, Google, Microsoft versus Nokia, from the view point that when Nokia (and other traditional mobile phone makers too) have been including these other features to phones before (like Camera or Music player etc.), those manufacturers that have been doing "just" cameras (or other features) have been saying that "those dont compare to real thing"

So why could it be hard for Nokia to be leading the next generation of handheld devices, even if they are calling their new devices as "Multimedia Computers"? - Simply because they are "phone centric", and in overall communications in future, actual phone features will become "less important", while other forms of communication overtakes simple calling. Sure it's not going to happen overnight, but as a huge company set on their ways, it's going to be really hard to adjust and drop their legacy "thinking" - ie. that things are build around phone features. Even if they know all this, it's still hard to adjust to this new mindset as an organization.

If you can you hear Nokia saying that iPhone is not as good as "real Mobile Phones" are? - does this sound familiar from what others have been saying from the other features in past, that have been merged to mobile phones of today....?

Will phones as we have learn to know them, die like PDA's?

Google android video

2008-08-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

So Google Android phones are getting closer. Check out this quick video of Android OS current stage. UI, basic features etc. Not bad, kinda iPhonish, - not surprising.

Those that don't like Apple limited extendability, will enjoy google platform. Nokia sure need to get their act together to be able to compete in OS game...

Hrrrrr... I see dead peop.. phones..

Are you ever checking back on old news?

2008-08-18T03:20:00.000-07:00

Today as I was working on one of my upcoming posts "The Secret Formula Of Steve Jobs" ( work-name). I noticed this ad along side my email that included my original draft of that post, that I had typed in my iPhone and emailed for myself.

It's a link to this article at The New York Times. I have no idea why they still have this ad up, I guess it's because they just have not updated their ad's lately. It's posted on July 9th, just few days before the iPhone 3G started selling and it's interesting to read after the iPhone has been out for more than a month now.

I think the only thing that they did not get right with this prediction was that there would not be high demand for iPhone 3G. As we all now know, there was a huge demand for iPhone 3G.

This all makes me wonder, how ofter do you read old articles to see how good were the predictions made before the facts were available later on?

PS. If you don't want to miss that post I'm working on, make sure to subscribe my RSS feed

Are you into user Interfaces?

2008-08-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

Take a look at these 10 very futuristic user interfaces at Smashing Magazine. There are several videos included, so this ones is good to have a little break on what ever you are doing and get some inspiration and new ideas flowing.

There's just too much good stuff to start listing those here, so click on to see all 10 cool UI concepts, nicely listed for you.

iPhone 3G - Ad versus Real World video (in all fairness)

2008-08-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

iLove my iPhone. But in all fairness, I agree that the real performance should at least be mentioned on the Apple ad. We who know the reality in today's mobile technology know what to expect, but for iPhone main target audience the "average consumer", they should be fair...

iPhone "1 Click Call" app quick review

2008-08-14T04:35:00.000-07:00

I have subscribed to "Recently Added iPhone Applications - Pinch Media" RSS feed, so I pretty much see all the apps that are going into apple app store. I have tested many apps and I guess, I should list my favorite apps at some point.

At first I thought that these "1 click call" apps are kinda good idea (there are many variation, both free and paid versions, like BF caller, Girlfied Caller etc.) , since the normal route to making a single phone call takes some clicking (due to limited hard buttons).

First you need to click screen on, then slide to open, select contacts, then select favorites to get to your "speed dial".

But these one click call applications also have limitations, first and foremost it's more than "one click" (if your phone's screen is off), you can only have one number saved per app, for it to work, and even if you get multiple versions from these apps with same function, you will be then adding many icons to your tray, just to make "one click calls"

As I know not so many of us read manuals and myself included had forgotten about this build-in feature after reading about it before I had my iPhone - I thought it's a good idea to remind about it.

To get to your favorites list with less clicks, just double-click the home button. So if your phones screen is off, you will need to, first click to power on screen, slide to open, double-click the home button and voila, there's your favorites. So to compared to "1 Click Call" apps you only have one extra "double click" to make, but you will get your whole favorites list with multiple direct calling numbers with names on there.

Witch one do you think is better?

Wanna search with Google without seeing any Google results?

2008-08-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Clever. This Finnish guy Timo Paloheimo, decided that a search tool that will leave all google's own services out from search results would be a good idea. So he created "Google minus google" search tool.

In the Finnish Tietoviikko article he's telling that he got the idea from the New Your Time's article, that talks about speculations that Google is favoring their own pages in search results.

So if you want to see how the search results look without google owned pages (No knol, blogger, YouTube..), go check it out.

It's an interesting idea, but I think I want to continue seeing google stuff too - like this blog ;)

60 million apps in 30 days

2008-08-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

If anyone is saying that selling apps to mobile phones is hard, they need to start adjusting to new way of things. It would be interesting to see a comparison of apps per phone model or even per OS to see just how much difference there is in percentages on these.

In first 30 days that apples app store has been up, there has been 60 million downloads with average of 1$ million in sales per day. If this will be compared to how many iPhones & iPod Touches there are in the markets, one could say that this is quite a number.

Simplicity, it's the way to go. Try to copy this Ovi.

More at Wall Street Journal

Looks like cloud is for all of us

2008-08-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I posted about DELL attempting to register "Cloud Computing" as their trademark. It seems that they will not succeed..

Dell tries to register cloud computing for their trademark

2008-08-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Oh man. One of the hot new terms in tech world is tried to be owned by one company.

According to a document on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Web site. Dell is applying to trademark the term "cloud computing".

I don't think there is any change for this to pass. I sure hope not.

via CIO

New logo for the blog

2008-08-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

I have just created a new logo for this blog. What do you think?

Would you give up Internet or Cell phone for a year?

2008-08-02T05:15:00.000-07:00

I saw this interesting question lin LinkedIn Answers. If for one year, you would have to choose to give up one or the other from Internet or cell phone. What would be your choice? And no, you could not use Internet in your cell phone either ;)

Would it make any difference if the time would be only for 1 month?

My choice would be very easy, I would drop my cell phone in a second, even that I have an iPhone now, since without Internet, the iPhone is just a phone...

I think this will be an easy answer to many that are spending more and more time online, but still it's a very good question that makes you think how important the Internet has become.

iPhone typing speed testing

2008-07-31T00:57:00.000-07:00

So I have an iPhone and I love it! It clearly is the best pocketable mobile Internet device available today - no question about it!

One of the most asked questions about the iPhone is "how's the typing speed with iPhone's keyboard?" - how does it feel and how fast can you type with it.

So I had to do some typing testing. Here is a one test text below that I did using the Note application:

"this is a simple means of testing the typing speed with the apple iPhone. I'm now typing in horizontal position using two fingers. This seeks to work pretty well of you only can trust the way the whole system works. I will go back later to see how many mistrales I'm making while typing this test. Also u have not ore planned this text so it's much like I would be typing a blog or a email. We just have to see how well it's working. I have bow typed for tree minutes straight with two thumbs and I can say this is staring to feel pretty good. Also I would like to see and hear if you have done similar test yourself and what have been your results on re speed. Let Me know what your experiences are and how do you like the soft keyboard. Obcan already say that this dontbseem too bad. Now I have gone for five minutes and ibwill stop Hera. Next time I will use stop watcch for better accuracy."

In this text there is 176 words and it took about 4,5 minutes to write, making the typing speed about 39 WPM (words per minute). There is at least 9 typing errors in this text so the accuracy is about 95% and that's not too bad, since you can always go back and correct those with your computer later if you are writing a longer text (I don't suggest to make correction with your iPhone, unless the application you are using has a spell check build-in)

I also did some testing with this iPhone typing speed test tool online. On average I can get between 35 to 40 WPM with this test. The results are a bit better when the iPhone is in landscape mode.

No if I compare that to my typing speed with full size keyboard (about 53 WPM on average) it's not too bad, it's about 66% and if I compare that to my tests with the 7" eeePC (about 45 on average), it's about 80% of the speed on eeePC.

Naturally these are my test results and yours may vary, but I can imagine that percentages will be close to these results (or not).

When typing with iPhone it's important to learn to trust the system and auto correction feature. If you try to type without errors, you will get slower results.

So are these results good or bad?

I think these are really good. I'm not the fastest typist anyway (I don't touch type), so if this brings me to about 65% of my normal speed while being mobile, to me that really good!

if you consider that when being mobile you actually don't normally type that much, in my usage typing is about or less than 5% of my overall mobile usage, then the slower typing speed really has no effect, considering I can type anywhere.

Also the errors in are not so critical, since I'm not planning to type lots of "highly important text" on the go, at least not long texts. If I'm typing short I can slow down and focus on correct spelling. If I'm typing long text, I will most likely edit it with computer anyway, so that's not a problem either.

If you are looking to read more about typing tests, here's' a google search for you and also check out some iPhone typing test videos from you tube as well.

Here's one of my favorites below.

One thing I have to keep reminding my friends and sometimes myself is that, iPhone is actually also a phone, so it really is with you all the time, for many other things than just talking ;).

Let me know your average speeds on your iPhone or iPod touch.