Just so everyone doesn't really think that I'm a slave driver that keeps Kevin chained to a computer all day, he is having a much-deserved day golfing in the Poconos. Join me in wishing for Kevin to "break 100", something that he very well might do. Have fun on the links buddy!
If it seems I have been largely missing in action this weekend it's because I have. I had deadlines on two articles for a major magazine and I had to keep my nose to the keyboard. I used the HP 2710p for the project and was continually reminded why it is such a great notebook/ tablet PC. It worked well no matter where I found myself working, the coffee shop, my office or on the back porch. The articles are now done and I am going to sleep now. Later.
It's raining gadgets at Mobile Tech Manor as today unexpectedly this showed up at the door:
There will soon be good coverage of this HP Pavilion tx2051 Entertainment Notebook but I can tell you so far it's the fastest Tablet PC I've used yet due to these awesome specs:
A few more photos after the jump.
Can't tell you what it is but something very, very exciting is coming to jkOnTheRun tonight that you don't want to miss. Set your clocks to wake you after midnight and check back often. You'll be glad you did. :)
Just a quick update that James and I were each honored today with our re-awarded Microsoft MVP status. I remember last year when I initially received this recognition, I wasn't sure if it was the real deal or another April Fool's Day joke!
The MVP award is in recognition of our contributions in the prior 12-month in the area of Tablet PC communities. I know that some folks out in left field believe that Microsoft MVPs are simply mouthpieces for Microsoft, but I'd beg to differ. While we've supported Tablet PC and UMPC questions during the past year in hopes of helping the community out, we've also called things as we see 'em. It does us, nor you, no justice to simply show the good side of any technology. We've tried to exemplify that with honest reviews and answers to your questions as well as sharing news on countless non-Microsoft technologies such as web-based applications, Mac and iPhone information and more. Regardless, we appreciate that Microsoft has recognized our contributions again this year. Now it's on to the next 12-months!
If you're curious how good a sketch pad a Tablet PC makes check out this very nice sketch done of Kevin and I by fazz33:
Very cool and we thank you! :)
GottaBeMobile ran an interesting post over the weekend that took a look at what browsers and OSes their site visitors are using. We keep an eye on this here at jkOnTheRun too and today when I hit it up as usual one of the visitor stats knocked me out of my chair. The surprising stat is the one that details what operating system visitors to jkOnTheRun are using. The OS is detected automatically and while some might be surprised that far more of you are using Windows XP than Vista I was floored to see that there are more of you using OS X than Vista!
This blows me away although I don't know why. Vista has been slow for many to adopt and we know that Macs are gaining users all the time. Still it's pretty big news to me.
UPDATE: Here's the entire OS graph that shows the breakdown of OS types that access jkOnTheRun.
Kevin and I have been busily making changes to the back-end servers here at jkOnTheRun and the main change for you to be aware of is a basic domain change. Previously the URL for the old domain name was ...blogs.com but this has now changed to jkontherun.com. This change makes it easier for everyone to deal with and only makes sense since we've always owned that domain name. Don't fear, any links you've posted on the web to URLs that end in ...blogs.com will still work but you need to make note that anything going forward should reflect the jkontherun.com domain. The home page for instance is now www.jkontherun.com and sub-pages will reflect that domain too. This will likely not affect anyone in reality but we wanted to point out the change to everyone. Make sure your bookmarks reflect the new domain just in case the old one goes away somewhere down the road.
Thanks for reading jkOnTheRun!
The Gigabyte M528 is a pretty cool UMPC that has appeared at CeBIT in a great video by Chippy and jkkmobile. It's a pretty full-featured UMPC that fits in your hand as you can see in the video. Valto over at PimpMyUMPC thought that the Gigabyte could be better and has created what in my opinion is the best UMPC I've seen yet, of course I'm biased. Would you pay for this?
Just a quick bit of housekeeping here. Not a week goes by of late where either James or I (or both of us) are asked about starting up some jkOnTheRun forums. Truth be told, I think there are already some great platform-based forums out there. Howard Forums, Pocket PC Thoughts and Gotta Be Mobile come to mind for cellphone, Windows Mobile and Tablet PC communities. Having a jkOnTheRun forum almost seems redundant with what's already out there in my mind.
But I'm not the community. You are. And James made a great point during a conversation we had this afternoon. Sometimes a post will generate upwards of 20 more comments; wouldn't it be nice to have that information categorized and easy to find in a forum? I can't argue with that, but we certainly don't want to reinvent the wheel as it were. So, the floor is open. Share your thoughts in the comments on this one and we'll see what the community wants. We've got other site changes in the works as well (like our new menu buttons, next page navigation at the bottom of the main page, plus more items TBA), so let us know if we should add forums on our "to do" list. Thanks!
I have been a bit silent the past two days but it's for a good cause. I am evaluating a gadget that you want to hear about, believe me, but due to an NDA I can't tell you what it is yet. No, not even if you beg or guess will I admit what it is because then the OEM can shoot me for breaking the agreement. You'll appreciate the wait, though, that I can assure you.
Just a quick programming note as I wanted to try to something different with our mobile feed and bounce it off folks for feedback. Up to now, we've been using custom solution I whipped up with Feedburner and TypePad for our mobile feed. Folks on handhelds don't need the full site clogging up their device, so we've been offering this lighter version for quite some time.
Last week on Digital Inspiration, I read about a simple Google Reader hack for a different solution. It looks a bit nicer to me in terms of formatting, so I implemented it this morning. Regardless of what I think, it's your opinion that matters more. If you use our "Mobile Edition" link, which is available on the sidebar of every page, take a look at the change and see if you prefer it over the older version.
The biggest change I see, other than the nicer font, is that you'll first get a listing of the recent post titles. You can then choose which to hit up at that point, so you're not downloading the entire front page of posts. Hopefully, that speeds up the download time for you and cuts back on the bandwidth you've used on your data plan.
You might have noticed that James was absent from our little on-line community yesterday. Per his request, I wanted to share a little information on the reason why. I'm keeping it very general for now, mainly because I have limited information myself.
On Sunday night James was not feeling well, so much so, that his wife took him to the hospital. I spoke with Sheri the next morning as she was kind enough to take a few minutes of her time to let me know of the situation. James is still in the hospital, but Sheri says he's feeling much better. All I know at this point is that his white cell count was high, which indicates some type of infection that his body is fighting. He and Sheri are waiting on some additional test results, but again, he's feeling better today based on the phone conversation I just had with Sheri.
Sheri brought him his computer today, but I'm asking you personally not to shoot him any mail, simply so we don't give him an Inbox full of stress. Instead, why not post your warm wishes and thoughts in the comments here. This will give him one place to scan through the messages from the friendly community here at jkOnTheRun. More to follow, I'm sure... get well, bud!
Found something cool this morning while I was goofing off working hard waiting to begin our hectic day here at the CES. Laptop Magazine has a special site for CES 2008 coverage and they have a very short blogroll of sites to follow for CES coverage:
That's pretty good company to be in. Hope we live up to the expectations. 8-)
Gosh, in the midst of CES packing, Software Development Times has us blushing too. I'm not a programmer (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night) so I don't follow SD Times. Apparently they follow jkOnTheRun however; they put us in very good company when choosing us for their "Best Blogs of 2007" listing. There's some serious names in there too, putting us next to Fake Steve Jobs, Joel Spotsky from Joel on Software, and the wise beyond his young years Long Zheng of istartedsomething just to name a few.
Thanks SD Times, we're feelin' the love! I may have to learn a programming language now, just so I can return the favor and read you back. It's a long plane ride to CES, so maybe I'll start this weekend.
2007 is wrapping up and I thought it would be interesting to see what the top 10 posts here at jkOnTheRun were. Finding that information is easy thanks to Google Analytics and it's interesting to note that out of the several millions of page views here this year, just over one-third of them are the home page. Sounds like a fair number of folks have a jkOnTheRun bookmark!
Before I share the list of most viewed posts in 2007, I want to point out that some of the heaviest viewed individual posts this year were actually written in prior years. I'll remove them from this list so that only the posts written this year qualify. If there's interest, I can share a top-ten list that includes posts from all prior years. Having said that, let's start out with number ten and work our way up to number one!
Continue reading "10 most read posts written and viewed in 2007" »
You may have listened to the final OnTheRun with Tablet PCs podcast by now. The podcast that I did with Marc Orchant came to an end with the untimely death of Marc earlier this month. I expected heavier than normal listenership due to its being the final production but I couldn't figure out until this morning why it has been even heavier than expected. Messing around on the web as I usually do I found this which I believe explains the high listenership:
This is gratifying because it shows how respected Marc's reputation was in not only the tech world but in the major news outlets. Awesome!
I was hoping to catch this one exactly, but I'm at the Toyota dealer getting the Hybrid serviced while James got a few posts out this morning. Call it karma or call it amazing coincidence, but we're ending the year here at jkOnTheRun with over 7,000 posts since the site was started! This is actually post number 7,002; guess I shouldn't have stopped at WaWa for coffee on the way in to the dealership this morning. ;)
James and I chatted about this milestone just last week, and although we think that's a large number of posts for two writers, there's an even more telling number that blows us away: the number of comments. We couldn't believe there were over 23,000 reader comments here on the site! It's a testament to our readers for taking that much of an interest in the conversation here. And that's what our intent is: offer up topics, reviews and opinions but make sure we have a conversation with you. Hopefully, with over 7,000 posts, we've done our part. With over 23,000 comments, we know you have and we hope it continues! Stay tuned later today for another end of year update on the content this past year... and thanks!
I've read a few posts recently about what I term "Vanity Googling", you know searching for your own name on Google to see what you find. The articles I read said that everyone should check what Google has to say about you and I must admit as on online person I have been doing my Vanity Googling for a long time. It was no surprise to me to find the search on "James Kendrick" shows my stuff appearing very high on Google. While my name is not that common there have been some fairly famous people with the same name so to top this search is pretty cool.
The search that blew me away however was one I did for the first time on "jk". I had not done this search before because I figured that those initials are very common and the results wouldn't be very useful. Imagine my surprise to find this:
Now that's pretty cool, only the Harry Potter author comes in higher. Do you search your own name and if so have you ever been surprised by the results?
It's 6:15am in the Albuquerque, New Mexico airport and I've been up since 4am. I'm waiting for my flight home: first to Dallas with a very short 65-minute layover and then home to Philly where I hear there's plenty of ice and snow expected.
Marc would be happy to know that I was fully prepared to be productive while visiting his beautiful hometown and house. After all, isn't that why I took my UMPC, bluetooth keyboard and 3G modem? Be that as it may, I clearly couldn't motivate myself to do much actual work, prepared or not. As a result, I took some time off during my travels. I'll be back again, possibly later today, but definitely first thing tomorrow. And the time off was good. Each time I go through the tragic process of losing a friend, I try to take something away from the experience: you can turn a loss into a gain if you try.
What did I take away? Marc's grounded priorities were never more clear to me than over the past few days. Yes, I knew how high he placed his family in his life and nobody was better at cutting through the daily pressures in order to do the first thing first. In order to get things done. It just became that much more evident during my time at his service and with his wonderful family. That's what I'm taking away: a new outlook and passion for better prioritization in my life. It started this week when I knew that writing about mobile tech really wasn't the number one priority for me during this time. It's a lesson learned and I'm thankful that Marc taught it to me. See you later pal.
Warner Crocker has been having InkBlot awards for a few years now and each year they get better and better. He's made his awards for this year and Kevin and I are thrilled to be the recipients of quite a few of them.
There are many awards that you should check out presented in the way that only Warner can do. We'd like to thank Warner and the InkBlot Academy, our parents, readers and most of all our pets for the support they give us.
Deck the halls with gadgets for gee-eeks, fa la la la la, la la la la. It's that time again and what better way to find that perfect gift for the geek in your life than this Fourth Annual Geek Holiday Gift Guide. Wow, that's the fourth year for our special gift guide! That's 28 years old in dog years. We've scoured the geek world on your behalf and present these gift ideas to make your holiday shopping easier.
1. WiFi Detector Shirt. Your geek is always trying to get online and that elusive WiFi signal is always driving him/her crazy! Not any longer with this T-shirt that has a WiFi signal detector built right in. $29.99.
2. Ultimate Hoodie. Whatever gadgets your geek needs to carry this Hoodie from ScottEvest will carry them in style. Featuring 11 hidden pockets, a Personal Area Network and magnetic pocket closures, the Ultimate Hoodie has got your geek covered. $69.99.
3. T.One USB MicroDrive. Your geek needs some way to hide protect those illegally legally downloaded music and video files and there is no better way than with one of these T.One USB sticks with a real MicroDrive inside. There are two capacities, 5 GB and 12 GB and these T.Ones are small enough to fit on a keychain. $44.99 - $109.99.
4. Stainless Steel Wallet. What would be cooler than giving your geek a new wallet from Coach or one of those other goofy makers? Why giving them this Stainless Steel Wallet of course. Each of these wallets is woven from ribbons of stainless steel yet has the texture of silk. Available in 3 distinctively geeky styles. $19.99 - $79.99.
5. Metallic Video Watch with OLED screen. If you know your geek well then you know that when you say the phrase "OLED" their eyes light up with that special glow. The 128x128 resolution OLED screen on this video watch will keep your geek's eyes all alight every time they wear it. A special geeky bonus adds to the allure as there are buttons all over the watch. $99.99.
6. Komen Microfiber Laptop Tote- That female geek of yours needs something stylish to carry her laptop in and this Laptop Tote from Komen is just the ticket. Your geek will really appreciate your thoughtfulness when you point out that 10% of the purchase price is donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. $114.99.
7. Collapsible Chopsticks. What better impression can your geek make on his/her friends when he/she pulls these collapsible chopsticks out of a pocket in that favorite Asian bistro. Made of white ash and stainless steel there are no higher tech chopsticks anywhere. $24.99.
8. Caffeine Molecule Travel Mug. Your geek subsists on coffee so this stainless steel Travel Mug that is emblazoned with the caffeine molecule will be an instant hit. They're going to drink too much caffeine anyway so at least keep it stylish and practical. $12.99.
9. 3 Port Car Outlet with USB. One thing for certain about a geek's automobile, there are never enough outlets to handle all that geek gadgety goodness. This 3 Port Car Outlet Expansion not only adds 3 power outlets but throws in a USB port for running those smaller gadgets. $19.99.
10. The Cubes- Cubicle Playsets. What could be more fun than working in a cube than also playing with them? That's what your geek will spend hundreds of enjoyable hours doing with these Cubicle Playsets. There are ten playsets to choose from including our favorite the IT Department cube. Your geek is always the boss in these cubes. $2.99 - $12.99.
So this is our Fourth Annual jkOnTheRun Holiday Gift Guide and we are sure you will find just the right geeky gift for that special one in your life.
We do a lot of videos on jkOnTheRun but only this year started posting them on YouTube to see what would happen. What happened is that today we'll pass over 260,000 views on YouTube which is just phenomenal and hard for Kevin and I to believe. You guys are the best for following what we do here and we appreciate each and every one of you! Next stop- a million.
It's that special time of the year for spending time with friends and family once again. Kevin and I wish all of our readers in the US a very Happy Thanksgiving! For those of you outside the US have a great day too!
One thing we practice at jkOnTheRun is complete objectivity when we talk about different hardware and software. Our goal is a simple one, we want to provide our readers with an unbiased and accurate picture of whatever we happen to be covering so our readers can make an informed decision if a given product or platform will work well for them. This goal is an unerring one and there is no compromise with this I am proud to say. That said, we have a few affiliations that we make clear when they are pertinent to a given review but I want to disclose them all so there is never a misunderstanding. The main affiliation both Kevin and I have is with the Microsoft MVP program. We have both been awarded MVP status for some time in the Tablet PC specialty. This award is made by Microsoft strictly in recognition for work we have done in the past in the community, such as covering Tablet PCs and UMPCs here and elsewhere. There is no expectation from Microsoft that we will be flattering in any way when we write about these products, and you can easily see from our work here that we call things as we see them. We wouldn't do it any other way. I have probably been one of the most vocal critics of Vista on mobile PCs, and I've waxed prolifically about my disappointment in the current UMPC stage.
I am a member of the Mobius group, a by-invitation-only group of mobile enthusiasts on the web where we share ideas and knowledge of the smartphone world. The group is sponsored by Microsoft and some OEMs in the smartphone arena but the group is not restricted to those active in covering Windows Mobile. It's a great group to belong to but there is no expectation put on the members to cover any particular thing. I have always been visibly critical here covering my disappointment with shortcomings in the Windows Mobile platform and this will not change. I have been a member of Mobius for going on two years.
For the past year I have been a member of the Nokia Blogger Relations program run by Comunicano on the behalf of Nokia. This program provides members with advance looks at Nokia products but there is no expectation for coverage of said products. I have received a number of Nokia phones through this program that I have not even covered here on jkOnTheRun as I didn't see them as items of interest for our readers. Those products I have covered have been done so objectively with my unbiased view to point out my observed shortcomings of those products. This will not change and it's important to note that all products received through this program go back to Nokia when the program dictates. I don't ever accept free products through programs like this.
Lenovo sent me an x61 Tablet PC for a long-term evaluation which was made clear when I covered the product. There is no expectation of me to give good coverage of this product, in fact Lenovo can't be happy that I bought an HP 2710p Tablet PC for my daily work. It's just the way I roll.
We have such a high visibility in the mobile tech space that many OEMs send products to us for evaluation. If we cover such products we make that fact clear, and it's important to realize that such coverage is always unbiased and accurately reflects our impressions of the product. The product is always returned to the party who provided it as soon as the evaluation is completed, and if the party doesn't want the product returned we give them away to our readers. We always make sure that those who send us product for evaluation understand that we do not guarantee them coverage as we receive a lot of such products, and we do not bend on this.
You have probably noticed that we have no direct advertisers on jkOnTheRun currently. Kevin and I have only accepted one advertiser in the past, and that was one whose products we liked yet made sure they understood that we wouldn't cover their products while their advertising campaign was active. We see too many potential misunderstandings from our readers if we accept direct advertising from those who produce the types of products we cover and the ad revenue we could earn is not worth that to us. Of course, if you produce products we don't normally cover we'd love to take your ad dollars. :)
This is a full disclosure of all affiliations we have currently, and to drive home our credo that all hardware and software that we cover is done from an unbiased actual use experience. There is no compromise on this and Kevin and I are both very proud of that fact. If you want us to cover your product favorably then make sure you produce a very good one, as we will be quick to point out what could be better. Our readers deserve nothing less.
My Sunday morning ritual of reading the newspaper while streaming tunes from Pandora got a nice surprise today. Each week in the Philadelphia Inquirer business / technology section, a list of web winners is written up and this week, the Inq spread a little jkOTR love to the city! Thanks for the mention Reid; we'll ensure folks don't confuse the Philadelphia Inquirer with the National Enquirer. Otherwise the readers might think that James is carrying Halle Berry's alien baby inside his gadget bag or something... ;)
Don't forget I am guest hosting the TechByte radio show on KPFT 90.1 FM in Houston tonight from 8 -10pm CST. It will be a lot of fun so tune in if you can or stream it live from the show web site. We take calls the entire length of the show so let's see a bunch of you folks calling in and asking for me. We'll talk live on the air about any topic you want- Tablet PCs, UMPCs, Linux MIDs, mobile technology or any Windows topics that floats your boat. Let's take over the show without the rest of the crew suspecting a thing. :) The studio line is 713-526-5738. "See" you there!
Let's call it a draft though. I have more to do but I finally found the time to write up my primary mobile device list along with what I hope are useful links and references. I put a bit of detail into some of the costs of the devices and service plans because I think folks new to mobile tech could benefit. The next update will include some of my home gear as well as more information about how I use my devices. As indicated on the gear page, everything was purchased out of pocket unless otherwise indicated. Here at jkOTR we have plenty of evaluation devices moving in and out of our mobile lives, but we never keep them. They're either returned or, if allowed by the vendor, provided to you, the readers! There's a permanent link to the list in the sidebar under my cartoon head for future reference. Come to think of it, I might need to update the cartoon head too; I've gained a few gray hairs since becoming a cartoon!
You can tell it's a slow news day as James and I are currently using our mobile tech just for fun. We're logged in to the 'net over WiFi playing a game of Scrabulous on Facebook while having a Skype videoconference. While it's certainly fun to play this turn-based word game over long periods of time, it's a completely different experience when you can see your opponent (as well as their facial expressions when they refresh and see that you stole the triple-word spot).
You can probably tell who's winning (and who's whining) from the Skype shot. And since when did "zen" become an invalid word? You should have seen my face when I got the message on that one! The best part was when I asked James to turn a light on so I could take the Skype picture. He was convinced I only wanted to read the reflection of his letter rack on his glasses!
Reader Patrick Duncan sent me an email recently with a great suggestion. He asked that Kevin and I set up a page on jkOnTheRun where we each will keep an up-to-date list of our mobile gear so that over time a picture could emerge over what we use and why. This idea was so great that Kevin and I decided right away that we would make such a spot on the site. I have worked up the JK's Mobile Gear page and will keep it updated as my kit changes, something it seems to do regularly. :) With a little pressure from you, dear readers, I'll bet we can get Kevin to get his page up too. We will put a link to the Mobile Gear pages under our cartoon heads in the right sidebar, something that should appear soon, so you can always find what gear we're using easily. Please have a look and let us know if you have ideas for making this even more useful.
OK, Austin Powers we're not. Then again, one of us is "groovy, baby"; no, I won't say which one. We both know however, that many of our readers are from non-English speaking countries, so we're trying out Google's translation service to see how well it does or doesn't work. Up at the top right of the every page, you'll see flags: click a flag from the English page and you'll get the same page translated into a different language. For now we're going to try this with Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese Simplified. We'd love to get feedback on how the service works, so let us know in the comments. Meanwhile, I'm going back to my shagadelic home office suite for more free NBC premeires. Shoot, now I gave away who's groovy...although I am curious how "shagadelic" gets translated.
You may have heard about a little issue that caused early iPhone adopters to get a bit outraged over the announced price drop of the phone. The New York Times has an article today, "iPhone owners Crying Foul Over Price Cut" which takes a look at the whole amusing situation. They wanted an expert opinion over the outrage so they reached out to none other than our Kevin Tofel:
The rebate, at least, was enough to mollify some early iPhone customers like Kevin Tofel, a blogger in Telford, Pa., who writes about mobile phones at a blog called jkOnTheRun. Mr. Tofel was so annoyed with the surprising iPhone price drop that he was planning to make T-shirts that read, “I was a $200 iPhone beta tester for Apple.”
“I just felt so used as a consumer,” he said. “They hyped up the iPhone for six months and built up our expectations, and then they grabbed our extra $200 and ran.”
But Mr. Tofel was pleased to hear about the store credit. “I think it was probably the best compromise from a P.R. standpoint and the right thing to do for consumers,” he said. “I’m sure they are taking a lot of heat but they are listening to their customers.”
I will be meeting a jkOnTheRun reader at Starbucks tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 Houston time to demonstrate a few mobile devices. It will take place at the Starbucks at 249 & Jones road and I'll be bringing at least the following:
If you're in the area and would like to fondle any of the above drop by and say howdy.
Back in July Kevin mentioned a contest run by the Slingbox folks that was going to snag Slingboxes signed by Tony La Russa for 75 lucky participants. Yesterday was apparently the day the winners received their prizes and not one but two jkOnTheRun winners have received their signed Slingboxes! Raphael Salgado and Ron P each got home yesterday to a nice surprise from the UPS guy and found a brand new Slingbox at their door. It seems that no notification was given to the winners in advance so it was a total surprise for Ron and Raphael. Ron is a very lucky guy as he's the winner of the Sony U71 we gave away earlier this year (that's it in the photo). Ron sent this email and photo of his prize to share:
I owe you a big THANK YOU. Because of your post on July 11th informing your readers about the Contest to win a Tony La Russa Autographed SlingBox Classic, I went and did a Video and submitted it right away. The contest was fairly simple, make short video describing what you do or would do with a Slingbox if you had one and then post it to a public access blog or social network site like YouTube. I sent the required EMAIL with the Link to my YouTube Video and that that was that. So about 6 weeks has gone by and I really had forgotten all about it. Today I go to the front door and Lo and Behold a brand new La Russa Autographed SlingBox Classic is awaiting me.
Without the guys at JKOnTheRun constantly scanning the Net and bringing us information links and announcements like this contest, we all stand to miss out on great little deals like this, and for this I am a Thankful JKOTR reader. After all, we cannot cover everything on the net ourselves, so having two more sets of eyes, namely James and Kevin, can obviously help make sure we are getting the news while we are OnTheRun!!.
NOTE: I just saw that another JKOTR reader, Raphael, also won an autographed Slingbox as well. Now that is impressive.
Thanks Guys!
Ron P.
Anybody else win a Slingbox in the contest? WIth 2 of 75 winners our winning percentage is not too shabby!
UPDATE: Reader Gaber also won a Slingbox so our reader winner total is 3! Congratulations to all of you.
Oops. Guess who forgot all about the poll to determine if I should continue to blog in ink? I could blame Kevin here but that's not right, I'm the one. Maybe I subconsciously forgot because it was looking grim from the very start of voting? Whatever the reason the votes are counted and you have spoken:
The vote is actually closer than it looks if you add the Absolutely votes to the Sometimes votes, which makes it 48% to 52%. That's pretty close. Maybe if ink posts had a text version below the ink? Hmmm...
This is a test post using TypePad Mobile on the HTC Advantage. Simple post with no links nor images (you can post images but not links).
The new found mobility I am experiencing with the HTC Advantage made me realize something I had totally forgotten- we have a mobile version of jkOnTheRun. Now the HSDPA speed I am enjoying now on the Advantage can handle the full version of jkOTR just fine but I was originally on EDGE and it was a little painful. The mobile version was a god-send to me then and it's especially useful on the BlackBerry browser. If you need a faster version of the site check it out.
It's been a slammed week at work, this of course since receiving two of the coolest mobile devices around, the OQO Model 02 and the HTC Advantage. I have started a dual review of them both and will get it posted as soon as I can. Honest, I haven't even had enough time to play with them. :(
It's amazing how much the computing and mobile tech news is changing. You can see it happening. Go back a few years and you had far less widespread coverage of Mac and Linux, yet today folks are tuned in right now to blogs covering a Mac press event. Earlier this morning we had a few stories about Linux, both in the laptop world as well as the new smartphone companion device class. There's new alternatives for browsers, notebooks, phones and more. As I alluded in one my earlier posts today, it might be time to take another serious look at Ubuntu for mobile device usage.
Aside from the news visibility of these changes, I thought it would be fun to look at the browsers and operating systems that you actually use to read this site. To say that the composition of what you use to get here has changed would be a severe understatement.....
Continue reading "The changing face of computing as measured by you" »
I knew it would happen eventually and quite frankly I always figured it would happen sooner than it did. I have been outed by Ralph W. Waldo, an editor for Popular Quantum Mechanics Magazine (PQMM).
For the past 3 years I have gotten away with the ultimate punk- yes, I am Fake James Kendrick. Known to myself as FJK, I have pulled the wool over the eyes of everyone in the mobile tech world. For years you thought you'd been reading the wisdom of the greatest mobile tech mind ever, James Kendrick. Who could blame you? The pearls of mobile tech wisdom were so often on the cutting edge, no, the very foreskin of mobile tech brilliance. Little could you know you were actually following a total fraud, FJK. My punk was so well done and deep seated that no one even realized it was going on, and it took a major operation conducted by PQMM to unmask FJK. Even existing as just a cartoon head Kevin didn't even know I was fake. So a lot of you are no doubt asking yourself what will happen now? Never fear, after the book and movie deals are signed FJK will return better than ever. Most of you probably won't even be able to tell that anything is different, I'll just keep writing brilliant things about mobile tech and you'll keep reading them. Of course I'll be staggeringly wealthy due to the book and movie deals. Sure Fake Steve Jobs has been outed, but he's just a rank amateur compared to me. You didn't even know I was fake, how cool is that, techtards?
OK, you've spoken and I've listened. I know that my handwriting is, well, not very pretty and some readers have requested that I stop blogging in ink. I do feel your pain so I'm opening it up to a vote. You can vote once a day and I'll run the poll for a week so step up and be heard. You like the ink posts? You hate them? Or maybe you're one of those people who can never make up your mind? Get your vote in, remember if you don't vote you can't complain!
Those of you who are members of the jkOnTheRun readers group on Facebook have probably noticed that Facebook is messing with us. The group bounces between unavailable and hardly functional since late yesterday. Hang in there, they'll get it straightened out soon enough. I'll bet they are rolling out some big changes, they've been doing that a lot.
Not to beat a dead horse (OK, maybe that's exactly what I'm doing) but we want to remind you that a lot of good discussions about mobile tech are taking place on our Facebook readers group. You'll find advice on really important subjects such as "How to convince your spouse you must have a new gadget or device" and "mobile platform of choice, which is it?". If you haven't joined what are you waiting for?
Thanks to everyone who joined our new readers group on Facebook. We have over 100 members after just one day which is simply phenomenal. There are already some good discussions about mobile tech happening and I can tell it will be a good place for us all to get to know each other a little better. Those of you who have joined up should note you're in good company, others who have joined you may be familiar with include Peter Rojas of engadget, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Robert Scoble, Brian Jepson of O'Reilly Media, Dwight Silverman of The Houston Chronicle, Josh Bancroft and Dave Zatz, among many others. So if you haven't joined yet, what are you waiting for? Good times are to be had by all. See you at the Social.
It seems everyone is joining Facebook these days, it is a cool way to hang out and see what others with like interests are doing. One of the coolest things that Facebook offers is the ability to join groups where discussions can be held with people just like you. Join Kevin and me on our new discussion group on Facebook, the jkontherun readers group. It's just getting started so there's not much going on but you can change that by joining and jumping in with your views on, well, anything. Tell us about your gadgets, either those you have or those you want and let's talk about it. Better yet tell us about you- it's a good way for us to get to know you. You have to be a member of Facebook to participate but you've already joined, right? If not it takes a few seconds to join. See you on Facebook! (Kevin you better hurry up and join!) :)
Just in case readers don't believe me when I say that I take my UMPC practically everywhere, the above and below pic from a pub in New York City should be proof enough. After all, who would risk UMPC life and limb holding electronics near a table full of deadly liquids but a true mobile warrior? ;)
The pics come courtesy of Dave Zatz who kindly invited me to the get-together. Above, I'm sitting next to Mari Silbey, one of Dave's ZNF contributors who humored my many UMPC demos during the evening. Down below you can also see Brad Linder from the excellent Download Squad blog; Brad conveniently placed Mari between us to save himself from the UMPC evangelism, I'm sure. ;) Dave has another pic of people much more important than me along with a roundup of phones he saw, used, oogled, fondled and who knows what else after a few pints of G. :)
What does it take to be a tech blogger? Lots and lots of web site tracking, looking for the nuggets of tech news that merit further research, keeping up with new happenings and generally tearing up the web. Google Reader makes it much easier to keep up with lots of feeds and articles and provides a good insight into how I spend my time on the web looking for good stuff to share with the readers. A look at the trends in Google Reader tells the story of what it takes to find those hot items to blog about:
No wonder I'm so tired. :)
Sounds catchy, but no, it's not a spin-off blog. ;) Just a quick note indicating that I have been on the run: taking care of a major home project with my father instead of taking care of the mobile tech news today. I've been completely unplugged from the 'The Matrix' since 1:00am this morning, which has to be longer than Agent Smith was ever absent. I'm still cleaning up the odds and ends from the big task, which was insulating and skirting our major purchase from last year: an Endless Pool. Of course, we picked the hottest day of the year in Philly to do this, which tells you how effective I am at home projects. Read: not very and the 'real world' stinks!
I'll be off the grid tomorrow afternoon tomorrow as well, but it's a mobile tech activity. I'll be driving into New York City to meet a few of my esteemed peers and I'm very excited by the prospect. I mentioned last week that Michael Gartenberg is supposed to be part of the small group and maybe I'll do an ink-blog post from the Big Apple to share the names of everyone else. I can give you a pretty obvious hint of another person I'm supposed to meet tomorrow: just check his picture gallery of the new Motorola Q9M and you'll have another name of our little Mobile Justice League. Just the name though..not the identity. ;)
After losing a bowling match to a seven-year old, I finally got around to using the WiFi connection in the Wii. No worries, the Wii invoked the "mercy rule" during our baseball game as I scored five runs to her none in the first inning. Anyway, the Opera browser works well but it takes a while to get used to the on-screen keyboard. What was interesting is that I was able to watch our video reviews on YouTube through Opera, which is to be expected but this opens up an opportunity for Nintendo. While we're still waiting to watch YouTube on the AppleTV, you can watch it today on the Wii.
Quick reminder in case you're just "tuning in": James has a guest spot on the radio in less than 10 minutes. From 9 pm EDT to 11 pm, James will appear on the Technology Bytes radio show out of Houston. If you're in that area, tune your radio in to 90.1 on your FM dial or your Zune. :) The rest of us can hear the show over the Internets on Winamp, iTunes, or Windows Media Player right here. Good luck dude!
Update: I see they have a webcam going too.
