This is a small answer to the hate that comes over from heise.de to iPhone users.

Okay three people forwarding me this article brings it to an end. WTF. Heise always was kinda “professional”, but this officially NOT SPONSORED by Microsoft, Samsung, Nokia & Co. “objective” study really tries to tell us that we iPhone users are CRAZY as we’re taken hostage by our telephone and defend its really bad existence due to some irritational psychological damage?

Well, I’m sure I’m not the only iPhone user getting forwarded all those silly news about “iPhone Worms Ripping Apples Product Apart”, “Security Issues with jailbroken devices (and their stupid users)” or this newest headline. What’s your problem?  I’m sure you’re thinking “Oh again one of those iPhone users held hostage by its smartphone, trying to defend its weak points”. Right. Thats the point. Its not about the malicious joy of people’s envy of a phone that does, what their similarly priced smartphone with much better hardware just doesn’t do: it works, its easy to use and you don’t need days to configure it.

But back to this silly study. There is one smart thing about it: if you critisize it, they seem to be correct. Well. So smart. The following could also be found out by someone without an iPhone. I’m disqualifying 80% of their points made.

Lets look at the points this study proves its view with:

1. “The first iPhone was not a 3G phone: What do you need 3G for? You can easily use the iPhone without using a 3G network and anyway, 3G is not particularly widespread, so this is not a problem.”

Nonexistant problem. When was this study made? Three years ago? Who cares?

2. “The phone cannot send MMS: There is no need to send MMSs, hardly anybody sends MMSs.”

Nonexistant problem now. BTW, I just sent one MMS so far with my iPhone, just to try it out - guess what? The receiving nokia device (XPress 5800, a pretty new device) couldn’t display MMS.

3. “You cannot forward a SMS: This is a function that hardly anybody uses and was therefore not included in the first iPhones.”

Nonexistant problem now. Needed to check that, as the crazy iPhone-users statements seems to be true to the bone.

4. “The phone has a poor camera: The built-in camera is perfectly adequate and the iPhone takes fantastic photos with its camera.”

Nonexistant problem. 3.2 MP is standard nowadays and in each iteration the cam gets an upgrade. Sorry for not using 10MP cams, but storage capacity scarce and the device 100€ more expensive. Oh and today we have the knowledge that MPs don’t translate into picture quality.

5. “It is not a real Smartphone, it cannot multitask: The phone has all the necessary functions and the OS is technically superior compared to other Smartphone OSs currently on the mobile market.”

This is a real limitation, but not as worse as described. The iPhone CAN do multitasking, but only some Apple services (like music, mail, timers, etc.) can do that. But technically, I’ll count this as a real point made. Even if noone ever has defined a smartphone to be a multitasking-monster. Well, Real Problem anyways.

6. “The iPhone cannot multitask, resulting in a great number of applications being unusable: The absence of multitasking is a deliberate design decision resulting in a faster UI.”

Nonexistant problem: Nothing is “unusable” because of missing multitasking. And this is technically the same point as 5.

7. “You can not change battery on the iPhone: How many customers run around with spare batteries? None or very few.”

My battery keeps up 2 days, so if I could change it, I wouldn’t do it. But this is of course a limit. If my battery gets broken, I can’t easily change it. Shame on Apple here! Real problem.

8. “Apple decides which applications you can install on the phone: This is good, because Apple thereby ensures that you do not get inferior programs on your phone.”

This is also a real limitation, but I wouldn’t say nobody mournes about this. This is in fact the most critisized part of the AppStore, and I hardly see iPhone-Fanboys defend that process. Real problem.

9. “The app store is a closed universe: Apple knows what is best for end users, which is good for the many iPhone users.”

Nonexistant problem for end-users. Besides, everyone else is copying the appstore for their own software world. It makes it easier for developers to give out their products. Oh, BTW this is the same as point 8.

10. “The phone does not support Java, so games need to be developed especially for the iPhone: Java is slow and not properly integrated with mobile phones, games for the iPhone are much better because they are directly developed for the iPhone.”

Well and other Phones might not support Fortan, or another favourite language of mine. Totally nonexistant problem.

11. “The app store contains numerous small trivial commercial programs: The app store’s large selection gives users the freedom of choice and the many small programs help make the end users daily lives more fun.”

Nonexistant problem. If you don’t want it, don’t use it. Or go to the Ovi store, hahaha. You won’t find more than a handful of reaaaly bad games in there.

12. “It is difficult to use the touchscreen for fast SMS messaging: The touchscreen makes the phone easier to use and you quickly get used to it.”

Nonexistant problem: since 3.0 you can type emails and SMS in landscape mode, and I’m nearly as fast on that as on a real desktop keyboard. The non-landscape-mode is not that good, but so far I didn’t see a better virtual keyboard.

13. “The iPhone is a low technology phone packaged in a sleek design: Apple has taken the combination of the design and UI to the next level, therefore the technological specifications don’t really matter.”

If you want faster hardware, go for it. As long as the hardware supports a fluently working OS, this is a nonexistant problem. Especially if you have 1Ghz and your windows mobile interface still is unresponsive.

14. “The quality of the phone is poor, calls are often interrupted and network coverage is poor: It is a good phone, these problems are due to the operators’ networks and not the phone.”

Nonexistant problem. At least I’ve never had a problem, and I doubt I got the single super-iPhone they built just for me while every other is broken.

15. “You can only purchase the iPhone from operators chosen by Apple: Apple has spent a great deal of time and energy selecting the best operators for customers.”

Real Problem: This is a real issue of course. But none that customers don’t whine about!

16. “The iPhone is targeted at a niche segment and will not be able to develop further: Apple has succeeded in designing a phone for people that appreciate design and user friendliness.”

“The iPhone is targeted at a niche segment and will not be able to develop further”? Did you read the numbers? Did you read the news? The iPhone IS 50% OF THE SMARTPHONE WORLD because it steadily develops!!111elevenone!

17. “The iPhone does not support memory cards: Iphones already offer the necessary memory people require and end users can choose between two models, one with a little memory and one with a great deal of memory.”

Well, thats Apple’s philosophy. I took the 16 GB version. But where is the difference to the many smartphones out there giving you a 8GB-memory-card and that are extendable up to 16GB? None. Well, okay, acutally if I had bought an 8GB version I couldn’t have upgraded it later on. Well. But its just stupid to count this as a problem of the device, its a problem of the user. And therefore a nonexistant problem.

18. “You can not install your own browser: The browser Apple has designed is so superior that you do not need any other browser on your phone.”

This is a real problem too. Its the same as points 8 and 9, but I’m in a good mood so this could be called another real problem.

19. “You cannot use the iPhone as a modem for your portable PC: People that have an iPhone do not need their portable when on the move.”

Nonexistant problem today. And Hello! There’s the jailbreak! And jailbreaking is easier than sticking a new battery in your phone!

20. “There is no radio in the phone: You do not need a radio in your iPhone because the iPhone supports iTunes that offers almost unlimited music.”

Nonexistant problem. I use Last.fm and there’re a lot more radioservices. Sure, they don’t use century-old technology for this, so you need to stream the stuff. Could be called a problem, but I’m not willing to count it. After all you have an integrated iPod too.

Conculsion: Again, the Apple-haters had food for their selfmade problems, but please keep away with such totally stupid studies. THAT SURELY HAS NOT BEEN SPONSORED BY (put name of big phone company in here) AND WAS MADE BY VERY SCIENTIFIC MEANS. If you see the logic in there, please drop a note. Other comments are appreciated too.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is iPhone keeping millions of its users hostages and is thriving on Stockholm delusions? (trak.in)
• Microsoft launches Bing app for iPhone (seattlepi.com)
• iPhone Gives AT&T Bad Name (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Is Apple Taking the Internet Seriously Now? [Apple] (gizmodo.com)

About a software - and what you would need it to do so you think it would be useful for you

After trying out many different ToDo tools, I found that none of them makes using these tools fun. I don’t have a mac, otherwise I would certainly use something like “Things“, as the introduction movies look pretty nice and simplicity defines the software.

Nothing on the PC? Well, not entirely: we have A LOT of REALLY BAD solutions for Windows. Firstly, Outlook. This one is too simple, and office is high priced. You cannot organize ToDos with Outlook. Then an unlimited number of applications that fill your screen and give you 1 million buttons. Require about 10 hours to use first time. Missing a good PC-ToDo-tool, I looked for web applications. Toodledo is a nice service, but the interface just sucks. And you won’t use a bad interface anymore, as we’re living in modern times where usability engineeriing is reality … sometimes. Additionally, the web-software needs me to keep an eye on the browser everytime, which I just don’t like. If I want to get things done, I shouldn’t need the browser for that as we all know where that leads (youtube).

Therefore, I only depend on the iPhone-”Todo”-app, the only one thats pretty much usable. Sadly, I don’t have a 3GS, and the 3G needs about 5-8 seconds till I can see the screen and the app is started, so thats not perfect too. I often let this app run at work, but seeing the screen still takes 3 seconds.

So, what would you do? Usually, if you want a certain software-tool that exactly fits your needs, you just try out some, and after you didn’t find what you were looking for, you just use the next best thing OR just decide to throw away the idea completely. Well, that is, if you’re not programming software. So I decided to write down some requirements and asked at Abelssoft (the company I work at) if we could do something like this. Well, we could try :-)

So I’m asking you: What is the most important requirement, a todo-tool should fullfill, so that it would help YOU? What we found out is that it needs to fullfill the following:

• easy to use, intuitive to use
• small, compact interface thats in the background, popping up from time to time to ask if you still do <this>
• tells me what I should do next
• rapid way of adding new todos (and a rapid way of setting importance, due dates and stuff)
• only necessary properties of todos (some want projects, some categories, everyone contexts, some tags, some planned time…)
• good organisation of todos (projects? recurring todos? inbox?)
• good filtering (if I search something, I need to find it instantly)

We had another giantic list of things that COULD be nice, but we’ll be trying to keep it sleek. And we found out that most people have very different ideas, what a todo tool should do more than the above. My boss wants project planning stuff like how much hours will this item take (I won’t want this). I want it to be able to synch to my iPhone (others don’t use iPhones). Some want dependencies between single todo-items (like this one can only be ready after another one), but how can you build this in without blowing the tool up to one of the complex tools already available? Some want projects while others find them confusing. Some want time-management-functions inclused. Some want further project-planning stuff like delegating ToDos or connectors to projectmanagement solutions like JIRA included. Choose and divide, young jedi.

Also, the GTD-philosophy seems to get in the way sometimes. For example, “Folders” don’t make any sense to me when you have contexts. They’re some kind of tags gone worse. That said, I like tags more. For these and some more reasons, I’m not sure if we should follow a certain philosophy (like the 30-year old GTD), as these were born in times when computers were not that essential in people’s everyday lives.

What do you think? Which feature would let you use a ToDo-organizer?

Related articles by Zemanta

• 12 Lists That Help You Get Things Done (lifehack.org)
• Why using ToDo Lists & GTD? (ithoughts.de)
• No Time to Read This? Read This (online.wsj.com)
• Toodledo - An Online Task Management App With iPhone Integration (makeuseof.com)

Just a short note about an error I resolved lately.

Image by koalazymonkey via Flickr

So after about two weeks of using GTD-life-enhancement with “ToDo” on iPhone, Toodledo as online-synch I have some basic thoughts wheher this helped me. You can find the last post about this here: Why using ToDo-Lists and GTD?.

GTD only > 2 minutes

The first (logical rule) I came across is: never put something you can do in under 2 minutes on a ToDo-list. Do it instantly! This helps resolving loops like “Put the other item on the ToDo-list”, so I guess the rule was made by a computer scientist ;-p … no really: if something is done quickly, just do it!

GTD vs. Calendar

First it has to be noted that GTD has some paralells with using a calendar. You’ll put appointments with people (like go to the doctor, have an interview with, etc.) and recurring appointments (like a weekly meeting with your colleagues) in a calendar, as you got one certain point in time when you have to do that. GTD is more about listing the stuff, that has no exact point in time when it has to be done. I’ll put there items I need to to at work and stuff that needs to be done at home.

Context

Context is the situation you’re in when you need a certain part of your ToDo-list. I don’t need my work-list at home and I don’t need my home-list at work. This is what contexts try to solve. In the GTD-programs I use, you can set a context to each item. On ToDo for iPhone setting your actual situation to a context lets the app hide all other todo-items. Contexts get automatically set on todo-items if you have set that certain context. On Firefox I need to set everything by hand, but its pretty easy. Use contexts, they mean the world.

The contexts I use are work and home. I also use another context thats called “boring-time”. When there’s nothing to do at home (or soon in the christmas-holidays), I look in that list. I put topics for blogposts to write, books I’d like to read and private projects and stuff like that in the boring-time-context. I didn’t solve one of those since I use GTD, seems I got too much other stuff to do :-/

Hotlist

You can set a “due date” (and time) on each todo item. This is the time when you should have solved a todo or the last point in time when you should begin working on the todo. You can also define a priority (like none, low, medium or high). When you then look at your “hotlist” (or “Focus”-list as its called in the ToDo-app), only the more important stuff and the stuff with a near due date gets shown, at least in the iPhone program its also filtered by the actual context that is set. This helps seeing the important stuff through the other clutter.

The due date has another important meaning. As its the time when you should start the ToDo if you didn’t do it before, you get a message (that looks like an SMS) in the iPhone app.

Problems I didn’t solve so far

I tried making a short list of items I need to do in the morning. Why? Hmm. I tend to walk around in the morning, not knowing what to do first. Sometimes I forget my umbrella and get cauht by rain. Therefore a small list would be nice. There is an option to let items recurr (any timespan, every day for example; I use this for getting the trash out every two weeks), but I didn’t like to see all the stupid items like “do breakfast” in the list. Maybe this can be solved with the iPhone ToDo’s “Projects”. Those can be used to set sub-items, but it gets synched to the Toodledo Service as single items, so I’m not sure if it works that good (tried it once, “inTheMorning”-project with subitems, set to recurr every day, but the subitems didn’t resurr somehow, so I sat the and got an empty project recurring in the morning).

Then Outlook 2003 made problems. I used another thrid party-app linked on toodledo to sync the ToDos with outlook 2003. Sadly, Outlook realizes its data gets changed and ask the user (me) for permission. This wouldn’t suck if you could allow it forever, but you can’t. Outlook just doesn’t support it, so you have to click “okay” every ten minutes, when the third party app tries to sync. Stupid outlook. Didn’t try it with a newer version so far. Outlook seems like a crappy ToDo-solution anyways, as you got no chance to define contexts (at least in 2003).

When I have more insights, I’ll let you know! So far, get stuff done! ;-)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Getting Things Done - My New Project (mintzwords.wordpress.com)
• Milpon - The Only Remember The Milk IPhone App You’ll Need (makeuseof.com)

I just installed Agilo from Agile42 on my Windows 7 machine at work. Trying to create a new user, I got the error message:

“The password file could not be updated. Trac requires read and write access to both the password file and its parent directory.”

To solve this issue, you must find the installation directory, right-click the subdirectory tracenv it, and choose Properties. In the Tab Security click “Edit”. Give “Users” and “Trusted Installer” all Permissions by checking the appropriate checkboxes and Apply the changes. Now your Local Server should be able to edit its own database.

Just in case you didn’t see this video yet, take 5 minutes to watch it … please. Its about what you should NOT vote in the upcoming german election and about the censorship in germany.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Rette Deine Freiheit (thewavingcat.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday I heard about someone (I won’t name) who tries to make money from blogging. Therefore he uses a completely different approach than just to start writing about somthing he cares much about or is very familliar with. No, its just a bunch of different blogs, specialised to certain up-to-date themes that you don’t necessary need to know much about, but that hit the vibe.

The idea in this is to place blogs on the web that satisfy a certain niche, that may get big soon, or are underrepresented in the web. Just pick a nice, suiting theme for a blogging-system of your choice and put some general pages up … get your info from WikiPedia, Google and other blogs. Get yourself some specific feeds on the topic. Keep posting news from the sector or random thoughts you come across in that topic. Crosslink the blogs and use the multitudes of web-directories for all blogs that you set up. Use a Twitter-Plugin and a follower-unfollow-script to gain followers. Watch the stats. The higher the stats, the more effort is to be put into the blog. Try to get advertisment for good blogs or use services like Trigami or AdSense to generate money.

Don’t be fooled: Using this method, you sure can make money on the web through blogging, BUT its a full time job and it will take a couple of months or maybe even years to get something out of it. If I could write good content in a well-written manner with a speed of 10 posts in two hours I’d for sure be a money-blogger … but I can’t. And I don’t think its the golden money source, as you’d need a lot of time to build up PageRank, reputation and readers using this method - especially if you’re not really apt with the topic you’re writing about.

Personally, I don’t gain much from watching such a blog and it won’t land in my feedreader. The Admarkets is flooded anyways, and I wouldn’t advise anyone to go down this route. If you really want to make a blog, then for chrissakes write about something you care about or just write about yourself and your experiences.

And one final note: Too many people on Twitter and in different blogs scream into the world how to make money with blogs and “online-marketing” - as too many computerkids out there dream about money from doing basically nothing - and I hate it. Its only blogged about to draw pageviews onto their sites, and as you’re reading this, you also might be a victim of the blogging-to-money-lie. Good content surely don’t come from nowhere. You need to be a very good writer to do this. And even if you have good content and if you can keep up the good work for a very long time that it will take for your word to spread, can you be sure that you’ll love to do it for a living? Can you be sure that its enough money compared to a random job? Do you feel challenged by this?

A second final note: Yes everyone can open blogs this way. We’ve got a lot of good CMS that make it possible. Don’t you think the commercial market will die out even more with even more people doing this sort of “work”? Did you hear about AdBlock Plus? Roughly half of your visitors won’t even see your ads.

A third, but final note: I got a lot of feeds from people who really blog good stuff. I love good blogs and good content, and I really think this is worth good money. But I also believe that this money isn’t earned because it was the purpose of this blog to make money but because the writer is just talented or has a lot to talk about. So please give up on the “get-rich-blogging-lie”. Thanks for listening.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Get Paid To Blog! Make Money Blogging! Earn Money Blogging! (wealthyways4you.com)
• Blog Marketing - Learning To Make Money From Your Blog (wealthyways4you.com)
• Blog Marketing - Tips For Making Money From Your Blog (wealthyways4you.com)
• Make Your Blog Easy To Find Thru Web Directories (raketscience.com)
• Make money by providing blogging services. (blogavenues.blogspot.com)