Michael and Michael welcome special guest Rob Smart to the show this week. Rob comes from IBM’s Hursley lab and was the developer of the Second Life Translation HUD back in 2006. While the rest of the world is talking about the olympics, the we focus on tech, tweets, and drinks this week. Our listener links this week focus on iPhone access to Virtual Worlds, Data, and Mobile Me. We look at the new xbat imbedded in Internet Explorer 7, and a quick look back at the summer of Web 2.0. We also unveil the new Dogear-Nation Hoodie! Just a reminder that we will not be recording a show next week and will be back on our recording schedule August 22nd.
iPhone Stuff
Second Life Communication via iPhone
Heidi go seek — synching digital life to iPhone
iPhone QR, Data Matrix, Aztec code reader
Windows Stuff
xbat — web browser plugins
Web 2.0 Stuff
Summer of web 2.0
Check us out on Twitter
Michael Rowe
Michael Martine
Rob Smart
Check out our blogs
Michael Rowe
Rob Smart
Josh Whedon
Dr. Horrible
Firefly
Drive
Beverages
Irn Bru and Irn Bru USA
Cheerwine
Final Thoughs
Michael R.
Rob Smart
Michael M.
Reminder — no show next weekend
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Nice works guys, and fun to tag along via Kyte (or “Skyte” as Michael seemed to call it at the start…!), parts 1 to 27
Couple of thoughts arising:
- yes, I think iTunes App Store does have different catalogs for US/UK… the Google App was not initially available in the UK while the US did have it, so I think there’s at least a time lag / sync issue or separate catalogs
- I think the MobileMe / Windows stuff is interesting, as I read the blog post there are issues in terms of the way MobileMe integrates with Windows apps… not such a big issue for Mac users where we probably already use Mail, iCal etc. Oh, and Michael R. made the point about work calendars / private stuff not being able to go via Google Cal, surely the same applies to storing that data in iCal (I guess it depends on the context here). So I think the techniques are useful to know about. I need to completely nuke my address book now it’s the primary source of contacts data on the iPhone, it really needs a clean up!
- Michael M., I was incredibly impressed with your mastery of Scottish culture – I think the “Made in Scotland from girrrrrderrrrs advert” was *quite* a few years old. Unless they re-ran it more recently.
OK, I’m just off to order my Dogear Nation hoodie for Hoodie Thursday. Shame that only the light colours seem to show up the text, even though the logo gets inverted correctly if you switch to a dark colour material.
Enjoy your week off!
Andy, thanks for the detailed analysis and kind words. We need to figure out how to keep the Kyte stream working okay, seems to drop automagically after an hour. And then, I truly believe my network provider at the house was metering me. Oh well.. Will have to fix that for next time. Hopefully we will have Michael and I in the same location for our next recording and we can both be on the Kyte Stream.
Thanks for mentioning my blog post on the show, that was completely unexpected.
I was using the trial version of MobileMe and just playing around, I might have to follow up with my post with another because I’m not very happy with MobileMe as a Windows user, and since I wrote that post I have canceled my MobileMe account, never to return again. Being able to sync my calendar to Google Calendar directly using another service was really the key factor for me not to want to continue with MobileMe. NuevaSync does a great job with my calendar and contacts. I think it even handles my contacts better than through iTunes because NuevaSync pulls in the profile images of my Google contacts.
The privacy issues were a great point, I currently don’t have issues with using Gmail and Google Calendar as my main sources though so I don’t mind playing around with these services. The key really is the ability to connect to different sources, but after I signed up with the MobileMe account I was really disappointed to see that there wasn’t a direct connection to my Google Calendar while I could already directly connect to Gmail. In order to connect to Google Calendar through MobileMe I would have to open Outlook and sync from that (which I don’t normally use) and install Google Calendar Sync to get Google Calendar into Outlook. That’s was a lot of work just to get my calendar on my iPhone!
The other disappointment with MobileMe was my inability to directly send my photos to the gallery unless I had iPhoto. I would’ve really enjoyed this feature for my phone but as a Windows user my only option for sending photos to the gallery would be directly upload them from the computer.
I think the user experience for MobileMe for a Windows user can be greatly improved, especially since I would pay the same price as a Mac user if I had continued past my trial.
The iPhone is the first Apple product I ever bought, and I’m quite happy with it, but MobileMe was a big let down for me on Windows. I don’t think it’s as seamless as it was being billed, and I have no interest in switching to Mac, believe it or not, I’m very happy Windows user. I do want to see more cross-platform apps like MobileMe, but they need to be truly cross-platform and not work just ok if you’re one kind of user, and wonderful if you’re another type of user.
Now ask me how much I love Windows Live Mesh though (currently in tech preview). I’ve been playing around with it in the past week and I’m impressed at how easy it is to use and set up. It’s not on Mac or mobile yet, but it’s coming soon. If I could have Live Mesh someday also work with my iPhone I would be so giddy.
Great show this week and I’m glad I could contribute in some small part. Thanks for the very interesting discussion.
Heidi,
I agree the experience on my Mac’s is much better than on my Windows machines. I use MobileMe across 2 Mac’s, 1 Vista Machine, and 1 XP machine. The integration on the Vista machine is okay, but no where near as seamless as the Mac’s. I would love to know more about Live Mesh, perhaps we will get some time to review before our next show in two weeks.
Michael