So in the past six months I’ve openly and freely loved my iphone. I really can’t say I had any complaints. Very few dropped calls. Loads of fun with apps. Reasonably fast internet connection. My usb charger never went up in flames, despite the warnings. I got plenty of time with each battery charge. I thought my phone was perfect, until it got cold here in St. Louis.

Something that never occurred to me when I purchased the iPhone in the summer (clever release date)…You can’t use it with gloves on. It only responds to your bare skin. This poses a major problem and serious annoyance, especially when you’re driving or walking around outside in the cold. It’s really not cool to have to either:

1) Scramble to take my gloves off and get to the phone in time to answer while simultaneously operating a vehicle or walking two large dogs, or…
2) Use my nose to unlock the screen and type in my password.

That little oversight has become a real annoyance.

Or as this author puts says, search as we know it is dead.  Search becomes social, essentially:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4259135.html

And apparently Microsoft is working on just this thing, with collaborative searching:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4292830.html?page=2 (see #7, collaborative search)

My mind’s too simple to make sense of it all, but it looks like there are some big things coming.

Everyone has their favorite web browser. Personally, when I discovered tabbed browsing in Firefox I nearly fell out of my chair. Once IE got on board with tabs, it was about who had the best pop-up blocker. Then came the advent of ‘Add-Ons’ and the debate got a whole lot more confusing. Earlier this year, when Google Chrome beta was released, I decided it was time to find a winner in the browser battle.

I found a lot of different opinions and reasons for liking one or disliking another.  For me, it came down to performance (after all, it has to keep up with my tab count). Here is the study I found:

Beta Browser Speed Tests:  Which Is Fastest?

Looks like astronauts will soon get their drinking water from recycled urine. My favorite quote from the article:

“Agency officials say the water from the system will be cleaner than U.S. tap water.”

Maybe Bear Grylls is actually on to something…

The other day I received a heartfelt email from a company who was reaching out to it’s partners in an effort to let them know how important they were to the success of the company. They wanted partners to know that during these times of economic instability, they were doing everything they could to make the company more profitable, as well as the partners. The email began like this:

“We understand that the recent economic turmoil has created a lot of uncertainty in the lives of [removed] publishers. During these difficult times, we’re continuing to invest in innovations that improve publisher monetization and advertiser value in the content network.”

The letter then went on to say that the company realizes the partners are one of the company’s greatest assests and the company does not take for granted the fact that their success is tied to their partners’ committment.

“We’ll keep driving technological progress, but our best asset will always be our publisher partners. The strength of [removed] lies in the value of the content you bring to users and the quality of the sites you bring to advertisers. Our success is tied to yours. We look forward to partnering with you for the long term, and remain dedicated to helping you succeed.”

So it’s probably obvious to you now who this letter came from even though I removed their product name twice. It came from Google. The phrase that was removed twice was “Adsense.” Google is reaching out to Adsense publishers with a heartfelt email. 

One would think that an email that went out in mass to an entire nation of Adsense publishers wouldn’t have much of an impact on an individual level. But it did have an impact on me actually. It made me think for a couple of reasons:

1.  It caught me off guard initially because Google isn’t exactly known for customer service with Adsense Publishers. Granted their CS has been improving quite a bit over the last couple years, but still, it was unexpected.
2. After the initial “huh” moment, it made me think of something more important. I thought about how critical customer service can be when times are tough economically. When your clients are feeling the pinch of a recession, a little extra customer service goes a long way. Letting your clients know that you value their business and that you’re committed to helping them succeed can make all the difference in the world. It could be the difference between developing a long-lasting and respected relationship with them or being the first to find out they’ve recently had budget cuts.

If you are like me, you are always looking for an open source version of everything.  Not just for the sake of using an open source OS or app, but because you want to have more control over how your computer or device behaves.

One device that seems to always keep me locked out with proprietary software and drivers is my cell phone, but not anymore.  The new Android-enabled phones have an open source framework that will give any developer the ability to take mobile apps to the next level.  Read more about Android on Google’s website:

http://code.google.com/android/

Just spreading the news that CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac is free tomorrow. It’s a funny story how it happened – 3 months ago Codeweavers CEO Jeremy White issued a “Lame Duck Challenge” to President GDubbs, claiming that he would offer his software for free if the President accomplished any of five goals during his last 6 months in office. 

1. Gas drops to $2.79/gallon
2. Milk drops to $3.50/gallon
3. US jobs exceed 138 million
4. The Twin Cities median home price returns to $233,000
5. Osama Bin Laden is captured