1. Zend_Config
2. Zend_Db
3. Zend_Session_Namespace
4. Zend_Application_Bootstrap_Bootstrap
5. The fact that the Bootstrap has a Bootstrap
6. Zend_Forms
7. Action name CamelCase management

But, mostly, I had complaints: no API; no exclusion based permissions; no RSS/ATOM feed; no integration with Twitter or Facebook; difficult to share only a handful of photos in an album; default stream is not customizable.

I knew I would still use the service because, even with those short comings, it felt better than anything else. But I honestly expected that Facebook would be the service that I gave up time with to spend, instead with Google+. That isn’t the case, though.

Instead, it seems that I’ve reduced my usage of Twitter. Sure, I still post there as my primary “microblogging” location. It feeds to Facebook, so they both get updated with the same content. I have to manually cross post to Google+ so, in that regard, some things just never make it there. And, if someone leaves a comment (or a mention, or a reply) on any service (Twitter, Facebook, whatever) I almost always read it and respond when appropriate. But when it comes to catching up with the updates of other people, I’m fully caught up on Google+ and Facebook, but I’m way, way, way behind on a regular basis when it comes to Twitter.

I think there are a few main reason for this. First, Twitter encourages content-less updates. 140 characters is just not enough. It’s good for a link with a little comment. It’s good for a quick update on an ongoing event, issue, or topic. But, in many cases, it’s just not long enough for a complete thought or idea. So most of the updates there are meaningless.

Secondly, Twitter doesn’t give you an easy way to ignore, hide, or mute someone while still following them. Yes, you can make a list and just read that list. But adding people and removing people from a list takes like a billion clicks. Too many. Compare to Google+: when I first add someone to a Circle I also add them to “Inbox”. If I find they are too noisy or not interesting enough to take time out of my regular reading intervals, I just take them out of “Inbox”. I can still catch up with them later when I check “Friends” or “Family” or whatever other group they fall into. And if they don’t fall into any other group, then there’s no reason to catch up on them. Facebook doesn’t give me that much flexibility without jumping through some UI hoops, but, at least I can quickly hit the “Hide” button and never see posts from that person again.

Ultimately, it’s the mobile interface that helps to keep me up to date. And with both Facebook and Google+ I can quickly get the list of updates that matter most to me. I can’t do that with Twitter and, therefore, it eventually becomes too much to keep up with, so I just start reading back at the top.

Also, one more interesting note is how much Circles have changed things for me. On Twitter, everything I write is Public. Which leaves me frightened to post anything too off the cuff for fear that it’ll come back to haunt me with such permanence. On Facebook, everything is “Friends Only” because it’s too hard to switch back and forth. Google+ is the only service where I have a nice mix of content going “Public”, “Extended Circles”, “Circles” and even individual circles for more “security”. It’s true that nothing on the web is “private” and I don’t expect it to be. But keeping some things out of the eyes of a would-be employer/client/future-father-in-law armed with Google Search is a good thing.

Find me on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.

In the beginning, there was the desktop, and it was good. Then came Laptops and Notebooks. At first, these were luxury items owned only by enthusiasts and business travelers. In almost every case, the user had a more powerful more useful Desktop at the home or office that they relied on as well. Over time, Laptops became more prolific.

Instead of Laptops augmenting the Desktop experience, eventually, the “Desktop Replacement” Laptop was created and highly sought after. In 2008, Laptop sales were greater than Desktop sales, and now there is no looking back. Only the power users and businesses remain as Desktop customers, and even those markets are starting to dwindle.

Part of this shift is due to the increase in available power at an affordable price in mobile computing platforms. Laptops could do more than they could in previous years and offered portability, many consumers were left wondering what they needed a desktop for at all. However, many Desktop users would have happily continued using both if they had an easy, built-in, fool-proof way to ensure that the media, documents, and settings they needed would be there regardless if they were using their Desktop or Laptop. But even today, 3 years after the scales tipped, this is not simple. Documents are getting easier, though not without added monthly fees that not every user is willing to pay. But media and settings are still a long way off.

Now Smartphones and Tablets are knocking on the Laptops front door. Netbooks blur the line a bit, but not for long. The newest versions of Microsoft Windows and Mac OSx are “touch ready”. Tablets and Smartphones are getting more and more powerful and more and more capable. Some analysts predict that mobile internet users will surpass desktop internet users somewhere in the middle of 2013.

So, hardware manufacturer, how can you keep as many Laptop users as possible, encouraging them to maintain both devices instead of trying to replace their Laptop with their Tablets and Smartphones? Sync.

Sync needs to be offered to the user as soon as a new device is detected. The user needs the option for automated synchronization that does smart things like always provide a happy combination of the newest media and the most often used media. Seamless remote access to additional media is the best way to ensure that, even if automated Sync made the wrong choice, the user can still get the files they want. All of the new cloud services make this easier on developers than ever before but can also be expensive for the user. If external services cannot be made free in most cases, then a service on the desktop should fill the gap.

The bottom line is, get Syncing, or lose customers.

Here are a few things to consider as you make the decision.

Having a NON-interchangeable lens means you have less to worry about dust, about losing parts, and about being ready for the moment. This is a good thing.

And a huge downside to the DSLR (and there fore, a plus to the point-and-shoot) is that they are bigger and heavier. Do not underestimate this. The bigger and heavier a camera is the less likely you are to bring it. And the camera you bring is the camera you use. And any photo is better than no photo at all.

However, unless you’re paying THOUSANDS for your non-SLR camera (which you can do and get the best of both worlds in some ways) then you’re also getting a much smaller sensor. This equates to more noise, less quality, and a greater difficulty in those cool tricks like making the background out of focus, capturing fireworks, and working in really low light.

For, kids, especially young kids, nothing beats the speed of a DSLR. The point and shoots get close… really close… but they are not quite there. For macro photography and photos of flowers, the point-and-shoots have an edge due to the mechanics of the small lenses and small sensors.

In reality, I have one of each (and two more for good measure and I’m not even kidding). Based purely on the average person, I’d have to say the top-notch point and shoot may be the best option. One of the Panasonic travel zooms (like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5/TZ8), or the beautiful new Canon G11 (or even the Canon S50 if you swing that way). These cameras are all smart, and fun, and fast, and take beautiful photos and all cost the same if not less than a DSLR would.

But, if you want that extra oomph in quality and speed, and really don’t mind the extra weight and size, go for a bottom of the line DSLR. I shoot Nikon, but, truly, Canon is just as good. As long as you have something in the 30-50mm range for a lens, the kids photography will be covered. If you travel or hike a lot you might want 18-200mm range.

There are a few tasks that one camera style is more suited to than another. If you want to mess with studio lighting and dedicated flashes go for the DSLR (and shell out the moolah for the lights). If you want to shoot sporting events, go for the DSLR (and shell out the cash for a big, long lens). If you want to do long, artsy, night time photos, go for the DSLR (and throw down some dough for a wider aperture). If you’re into macro photography, go for the point and shoot. It really is the cheapest easiest way to get that job done. If you want to take the camera to the beach, underwater, or on hiking trips in questionable weather, go for the point-and-shoot since the waterproof housings are cheaper.

First, let’s point out the only OS to get it right: iPhone. Right out of the box iPhone displays your contact’s photo beautiful with no additional software required. It crops, resizes, scales, and gives you the best looking photo possible displayed very largely on the iPhone’s display.

Android tries. But it has quite a few issues. First of all, it only uses about 1/4 of the screen’s display to show the photo. Since there’s nothing useful on almost all of the remaining 3/4 of the display, why not fill the screen? Even worse, however, is when you activate your contacts for Google Sync. You see, almost everyone activates their contacts for Google Sync, because it’s easy and awesome. Except for when it comes to Photo Caller ID. You see the phone saves a nice large image to use for the Photo Caller ID. Even lets you crop it square yourself to decide what to show. Then your phone Syncs with Google. Well, Google only supports a 96×96 pixel image for a contact photo. So, when the sync is finished, that’s all you’re left with on your phone. The end result is that Android does the best it can to scale a puny little 96×96 pixel image up to fit the space reserved for contact photo display. You get a nasty looking, pixelated photo that barely resembles your contact at all.

Windows Mobile requires a 3rd party app to get this right. At least, however, once you have it it works well enough. Of course Windows Mobile is dead, so who cares.

Symbian Series 60 requires a 3rd party app as well. Lame.

When it comes to non smart phones, Nokia’s Series 40 is king. The phone does a pretty good job of displaying the photo in as much space as it can acquire. However, it doesn’t maintain aspect ratio, doesn’t give you the option to crop, and really only displays a chunk out of the center of the photo due to other onscreen display items being present. I’ve yet to find a template that shows exactly what size the image should be and which parts of it are completely obscured by onscreen text.

Can all the handset OS developers all just sit down and fix this problem already? And if someone has a template for Series 40 phones, can you send it my way so I don’t have to send myself 100 photos to reverse engineer it?

Buzz is like Twitter in that it’s easy to use and by default open and public. It’s like Facebook in that you can share more than just a status update. It’s like Tumblr in that each of the different types of things you can share is formatted in a way best suited to it. It’s like Loopt in that you can publish your location as well.

It’s different than all of these in that it does these things in a way that is easy to understand, integrated with the gMail experience, very mobile capable, and built using a hybrid of open standards as up and coming protocols to tape it all together.

Will it let you do something that you couldn’t already do? Not exactly. Just like  gMail, it’s about making an existing experience better, not about making something altogether new. But, I’d argue that, even at one month old, it does a lot of things better already. Of course, it has some room for improvement too.

To understand what is better about it, you really have to try it. But it can be compared and contrasted with other services.

Take Twitter, for example. When it comes to making a status update, typing text into a box is typing text into a box. There’s no “better” or “worse” about it unless it can read our minds. Google hasn’t announced that feature, yet. However, Twitter was built around the age of the the text message, SMS. And while SMS is still widely used and isn’t going away anytime soon, smart and capable platforms (like iPhone, Android, and others) make SMS seem archaic in comparison. The 140 character limit of a Twitter status update is an example of this. As a PRO, Buzz has no such limitation. As a CON, however, Buzz is not capable of being delivered to your mobile handset by SMS.

The use off Twitter has sort of evolved though. It’s initial use case — a sort of global, opt in, mobile connected chat room — is no longer all it is used for. While it’s usage patterns have evolved, the service really hasn’t. People now include links, and hash tags with many of their Twitter updates. Even with URL shorteners getting shorter and shorter, a link takes up about 19 characters. Include a space separator, 5 characters for a hashtag, plus the hash and a separating space, and you’ve used up 27 characters leaving you only 113 to write commentary. This means that Twitter is being used less and less for new content and more and more for passing around content written somewhere else.

With its lack of character limitation, Buzz is better suited for sharing links and various media with commentary. Even without commentary, Buzz does a better job simply because, in Twitter, a link is still just a link. In Buzz, smart display features kick in to highlight photos, embed movies, and play audio.

Tumblr is an interesting service in that they were one of the first to realize that due to trending usage patterns, Twitter was, literally, dying for feature enhancements. They took the idea behind Twitter, stripped it of its SMS roots, and added new display features for the most commonly shared media types. They gave users the ability to embed and customize, tacked on comments and group blogs, and added features to allow for sharing and searching amongst one another. What was born was a beautiful, feature rich platform for sharing both thoughts and links to interesting things.

Tumblr pretty much stopped right there, but maybe that’s enough. As an engine for publishing short form thoughts and links, in a manner that allows you to express your own personality in look and feel, it is one of the best. Buzz doesn’t come close to the customization and embedding features Tumblr provides. And though Tumblr only allows two protocols for integration with other services, they are the most commonly used protocols: RSS and ATOM.

Since Tumblr, other services have come out with a slight twist on the feature set. The most notable of these is Posterous. While it lacks some of Tumblr’s customization and rebroadcasting features, it adds additional points of outgoing integration– Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr, to name a few. However, it doesn’t allow for any incoming service integration at all. And it’s preferred method of interaction is plain ole email. This means that there probably won’t be “an app for that” and you probably don’t need one.

Buzz’s greatest competition is Facebook. Compared with this social networking giant, the biggest differences are lock-in and open standards. Buzz relies, as often as possible, on open standards. This means that, as long as the site you wish to connect it to is using open standards, there is little to no learning curve or development required to get the two to integrate. Facebook, on the other hand, requires an application to be developed for it specifically suited to that integration task. The difference is subtle and, because of this, I’d argue that, right now, Buzz is closest to Facebook in it’s realized feature set.

Buzz has the strong, technical upper hand between the two in that it is more open and encourages interoperability. In fact, someone else could, tomorrow, invent a Buzz-alike service and, right out of the box, it would play nice with Buzz allowing content to flow back and forth between the two with little to no effort. Also, being integrated with gMail, Buzz has the potential of competing with Facebook’s user base. However, users, in the end, don’t care about this. What they care about is the answer to this question: who and what can I connect with RIGHT NOW? And, at least RIGHT NOW, between the two, Facebook wins.

But know this: Buzz is a force to be reckoned with. It doesn’t have everything right on the first pass. Not by a long shot. But if it continues to maintain technical superiority over Facebook, while adding new features implemented elsewhere (like Tumblr and Posterous and Twitter) and not currently present ion Facebook while maintaining its influx of users, it won’t be long before the two are neck and neck in who and what can be connected to. And at that point, Buzz might just take the lead.

To get a feel for some of these services, check me out there.

twitter: revjim (status updates)
twitter: revjimweb (automated updates from all my various blogs)
facebook: Facebook
tumblr: revjim
posterous: Now, Daniel! (status updates)
posterous: Life of Daniel (a log of interesting communication)
Google Profile
Google Buzz (all of my sites fed in along with some original content)

Each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses from the Checkin-centric services like FourSquare and Gowalla, to the real-time location based services like Latitude, and hybrids like Loopt. But, in every case, one important feature is missing.

It’s nice to be able to let people know where you are. Real-time location provides that and, with tenacity on the part of your contacts, can even indicate if you is currently in transit. But if your friends don’t find out where you are until you get there, it often makes it difficult if not impossible to actually meet you there.

What these services lack is the ability to indicate the intent to arrive at a particular location and even an estimated arrival time. Instead of checking in at my local pizza place when I get there and finding my friends showing up just as I’m leaving, I should be able to, instead, check in my intent to go to that establishment at a certain time. Then my friends could contribute their mutual intents and then our paths would be highly more likely to collide.

A truly smart service could even indicate when a person was in transit and where they were in transit from based on either real GPS data or their last check in location.

I’m sure someone will build it. I’m just waiting to see who. Until then, I use Foursquare and Latitude, each with different purposes and neither really providing the most useful service.

So what does all this non-sense mean? If you happen to have a conforming RSS reader (like, say, Google Reader is now), or a service that understands this stuff (like, say, FriendFeed) then when a PubHubHubbub using website or feed updates, you can find out about it instantly, instead of having to poll for it. This means less network traffic and less work, with instantaneous updates. All the benefits of Twitter, LiveJournal, and Facebook, from the comfort of your own decentralized blogging engine.

Assuming I have all the bits in place. This should update my FriendFeed almost instantaneously. Let’s see.

Update: It works!

Too many of you assholes see something on the internet and think, “HEY! I can do that too! I’m gonna be fucking rich!”.

No, you can’t. And no, you’re not.

Just give up now before you litter my precious Internet with your crap. And before you start saying “but my idea is new and better and different”, just stop right there. It’s not new. There is nothing new. It’s all been done already. Yes, all of it. And it’s not better. It’s not even as good. Someone better looking, with more money and more time already did it. An no one wants different. We say we do, bit we’re lying. If you make something different, that just means it sucks that much more.

Save us all the trouble. Don’t clutter the Internet with your crap. Just give up now and go back to eating Cheetos and playing “Left For Dead” on an XBox that you didn’t and could never have invented.

I’ve been using Android for 3 months now and Android 1.5 for about 3 weeks.

I’ve only had 1 day with iPhone OS 3.0.

I’m running Android on a T-Mobile G1. I’m running iPhone OS on an iPod Touch 2G 8GB.

In comparison to iPhone hardware, I’m lacking the mobile network, the camera, and the built in microphone. Specwise, the Touch 2G is faster than the iPhone 2G and 3G but slower than the 3GS.

OnScreen Keyboard
iPhone

iPhone gets this right. The Android keyboard works, and even has some features that I prefer. For instance, when hitting “shift” the keys all change from upper to lowercase letters making it obvious if you are capitalizing or not. I also like that the word changes/choices appear above the keyboard (where my eyes are) and not up in the text (where my eyes only go sometimes). But, in the end, I can type A LOT faster on the iPhone keyboard and make fewer errors. And That’s only after 1 day of use. I’m sure, in time, I’ll get even better.

Physical Keyboard
Android

Since iPhone doesn’t have one, Android wins. If you want physical keys, then this is a good thing. If you don’t need them, then you don’t care. As it stands now, I can type faster on my physical Android keyboard than I can on the iPhone OnScreen keyboard. As I get better at iPhone, that may change.

Browser
iPhone

The iPhone Browser is FAST and easy to use. It still stalls now and then, but not nearly as often as Android. Plus the multi-touch hardware really excels here.  Android seems able to display everything it can and in every case I tested it does so just as well in the end. But it typically takes longer to get there.

Photos
iPhone

Android photo browser sucks. It’s slow and complicated. Replacements available in the Market aren’t much better. iPhone is fast and easy, as it should be.

Mail
iPhone

Despite the fact that the Mail app on Android is native to gMail and that I use gMail, I still find the experience better on iPhone. Deleting and sorting mail is fast and easy. Despite the fact that some things I use are harder to get to, the speed of the app makes up for any difficulty.

Push Mail
Android-ish

My mail doesn’t seem to push at all on iPhone OS. But that may be because push only works with iPhone hardware and not with Touch hardware. Perhaps the mobile network is required for push? Regardless it doesn’t work. And Android does. But only for gMail.

Push / Pull
Android-ish

Android doesn’t implement Push. Individual apps do. Therefore, the apps must be running in the background to accept pushed content. When this happens, it typically works well, though each implementation is different. Other apps Pull content at regular intervals. This also works well but is more battery consuming, network consuming, and still requires the app to be running in the background.

iPhone has real Push. However, I’ve not seen many apps that use it. I tried AIM, because it was free and supported push. I found the Push interface to be obtrusive at best. I’m not sure if that method of operation is required or is simply how AIM chooses to implement it. Looking for other Push enabled apps to try.

I had hoped it would work similar to Android’s notification bar. A pushed message causes something to happen. Usually, a notification of sorts in a common place to inform the user of pending interaction. However, ideally, it would also allow for an action to take place without user interaction. For instance, Loopt might push a request for location. I don’t want to have to acknowledge that then fire up the app to update location. Ideally, the pushed notification would cause the update to happen and then the app to die. Apps requiring user interaction would notify in a common location and not with an annoying popup for each event. Then again, part of that may be AIM’s implementation. Perhaps all that I desire is possible and AIM just used it poorly.

General Use
iPhone

iPhone is smooth. Everything works almost exactly as expected with only a few caveats. On Android, when scrolling around on a webpage, for instance, I often accidentally click links. This never happens on iPhone. The UI programmers have put a lot of thought into when users are scrolling and when they are clicking and how to tell the two apart.

The same is true for all of the menus. Everything is fast, and pops, and is consistent with very few exceptions. 

3rd Party Apps
iPhone-ish

iPhone has been around longer. There are lots of good solid apps available for iPhone. Especially in the “games” arena. It’s shocking, really. However, Android is catching up. And the Android apps that are available (General Use issues mentioned above aside) work just as good if not better (because of Push/Pull features) than the iPhone counterparts. 

Hardware
iPhone

The iPod Touch screen is bigger and nicer looking. I don’t have a camera to compare or anything like that since I’m working with the Touch. The Touch is lighter than the G1 and I believe the iPhone is as well. It also feels more solid in the hand.

Development
Android

The Android SDK is free and available on Mac, Linux, or Windows. The iPhone SDK requires a membership and is only available on Mac. iPhone apps can only be distributed through the App Store, The same memebership for the SDK is required. Prices run $99-$299 depending on use. Android apps can be distributed outside of the Market. Placing an app in the Market requires a $25 developers membership.

Things have changed.

As I mentioned in detail on Jonathan’s LJ, people use Twitter in very different ways. I have two very different kinds of followers:

1) People interested in my website, my photography, my personal thoughts, and links of interest to me.

2) People interested in the current mostly mundane details of my local life and making small talk about it.

Now keep in mind, there are people who fit both categories. In fact most people who fit in group 2 probably at lesat partly live in group 1. However, not all of those people would prefer to subscribe to each individual source of information as opposed to using twitter to aggregate it all.

Despite the fact that I believe I should continue to use technology in a way that does me the most good, at the same time, if I can do something without putting myself out too far to make more people more happy with the way I’m using that technology, then it becomes even more useful.

So, I now have two Twitter accounts.

twitter.com/revjim: This will be manual updates about my life and, for the most part, all original content. Full of “Celeste just pooped in the potty”, “I’m getting coffee”, “I am SOOOOO drunk”, “I’m eating a chicken sandwich”, “I have a headache”, “I’m in El Paso!”, “I just bought a iPod Touch”, and “I really hate Apple”. There will be location based updates as well (from Loopt or whatever tool I choose). There will also be @replies to other friends, etc. This will be my primary use account. The status updates will be syndicated to Facebook as they are now. Lots of noise here. Very little signal. Mostly useless information but still a large part of the “fun” of Twitter. Should average about 20 updates a day though 80% of them will be replies to people you may not follow, in which case you won’t even see them. This will be locked/private.

twitter.com/revjimweb: Website updates, photos, and links to longer, more thought out posts all over the web including comments made on other blogs and journals. It will consist of only links and responses to those links. Should average about 5 updates a day, give or take. However, there may be some replies if followers choose to interact with the content in that way. For instance, replying directly in Twitter, using Tweetboard, or authenticating with Disqus through Twitter.

Follow (or UnFollow) as you desire. You won’t hurt my feelings either way.

(and I may get a few in the wrong place as I switch all my tools over, so bear with me.)

As I see it, there are really only 2 options.

1. My own website powered by WordPress
2. LiveJournal

The big deciding factor between the two is whether I want to write in public or private, and how much I want to cater to lazy people.

First, the lazy factor.

I’ve found that, for entries about Life, I get far more comments in LiveJournal than I do on the same entry posted on my website. It seems that LiveJournal users are either too lazy to click the link and read at my site, or are too lazy to bother to comment once they do.

Question 1:
Do I want to cater to this? Do I care?

Secondly, there is security.

If I’m going to really get deep into the “locked entry” writing, LiveJournal makes the most sense because it has tons of features in this arena. It means that some people will be excluded if they don’t have a LiveJournal account or know how to use OpenID. It also means I’d lost a lot of control over the look, layout, and functionality.

If i just intend to write something locked once in a great while, I can find some other means for distribution or use WordPress password protection and not really worry about it. In which case, I could just write on my own website like I’ve been doing and call it good.

Question 2:
So I ask you, do you think I write enough about my personal life? Am I candid enough in public? So you think I’m too candid in public? Should many of my life entries have a lot more filter on them?

I’m really twisted over which way to go on this. Your comments are appreciated.

First the good.

The phone is beautiful. It feels nice in the hand. The included case is attractive, easy to get the phone out of, and provides great protection. The keyboard, though a bit tight at first, is easy to get to. Outside of the case, the phone feels nice though it could do well to have a bit more grip. A silicone case should help. The screen is vibrant and has plenty of resolution. Buttons are well placed and mostly intuitive.

As far as the HARDWARE goes, this phone deserves top ratings. It’s the software that I have big issues with.

Getting the phone setup in the beginning is difficult. There are lots of settings and they are spread out in many non-intuitive locations.

The Active Today screen that provides updates on the status of your email, text messages, and mobile service is cumbersome at best. The directional pad did not operate as expected and I found myself guessing incorrectly regarding what various buttons and menu choices would do.

The way data connections work are plain silly. Ideally, the phone would understand that, in most cases, a WiFi connection is better than a GPRS/EDGE connection. It should at least give me the option of switching seamlessly between the two. Instead, most applications require you to set a connections and your choice is either a WiFi connection or a GPRS connection. Even switching to another WiFi connection requires work. An application called PsilocConnect (which costs extra) is supposed to help with this. You choose the PsilocConnect connection. It then either chooses any available WiFi connection or a GPRS connection when WiFi is unavailable. This makes sense and works pretty well except when you have an application that doesn’t allow you to choose the PsilocConnection. Then the fight with each other and the only real loser is the user.

Messaging is the killer app on Mobile and the Nokia E71 software fails in every possible way.

It supports PUSH email, which is great. But the implementation is limited. The phone will either poll at intervals and download the entire message when it does, or it will support PUSH but only download the headers and fail to reconnect if the data connection is interrupted. I could be wrong here. The settings screen for setting up this part of email was very difficult to understand and the manual shed no additional light. If I over looked something, then it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t try. Using 3rd party email applications didn’t help either. BlueWhaleMail was the closest, but still not quite right. Emoze was buggy. Nokia’s Email Service also didn’t function reliably and seems to have a one email account limitation.

The Nokia also didn’t seem to come with any IM applications. No gTalk, AIM, MSN,Yahoo, Jabber, nothing. There are some 3rd party options available here as well. I tried a few with limited success. None seemed to be really well designed, intuitive, or easy to use. Additionally, most of them required additional purchase.

Even the Nokia PC Suite was buggy. I couldn’t import my Yahoo Address book export no matter how hard I tried. In many cases the PC Suite had trouble realizing the phone was connected. It crashed fairly regularly. The built in messaging applications were very slow if they worked at all.

Even simple things like lighting up and sounding some kind of alert when a Bluetooth device attempts to connect were not implemented. I attempted to use a Bluetooth GPS device but the phone didn’t seem to accept that. It’s own built in GPS application never fully indicated location.

In conclusion, the phone hardware seems outstanding and well built. It’s the Symbian OS that needs to catch up with the iPhones and Blackberrys of the world. When you consider the fact that these phones are not really being subsidized by any US carrier, this means that customers are expected to pay full price as well. This just isn’t going to happen with so many other options available with software that actually works as expected.

There are hundreds of sites begging people to put their cool links into them (delicious.com and the like). But none of them really let you customize the site and make it your own. On top of that, almost every piece of social networking software has some form of link sharing built in (like FaceBook) but most of them are exclusive to the members of that site and require a bunch of hoops to make things start flowing. There’s StumbleUpon which is awesome for finding new content and sharing it but not so good at keeping that content organized or sharing it in a customizable fashion. I find myself sharing lots of things with lots of people in lots of ways, but each of them locked up to a subset of users in it’s own less than desirable way.

And then there is Tumblr.

They are smart enough to not link a single account to a single site. So, any account can post to multiple sites, create sites of its own, or not have any associated sites. They also allow multiple contributors to sites and even allow private posting (though you have to be a member to view).

They offer complete customization even allowing the use of sites like Google Analytics for traffic analysis and Disqus to enable comments.

Their approach to content is intriguing. From short blurbs, to chats, to text posts, to photos, to videos, to audio, to reblogging… the site is based around the concept of formatting differently for different media types and excels at displaying whatever it is you put into it.

It can be used to share links, photos, thoughts, or just about anything else on the web. While most of it’s users tend to focus on sharing found content, it is certainly suited to hosting original content as well.

So, with all that, I’m going to begin using it to share the interesting things I find online. Should I find the content becomming to heavy in anyone topic, starting a new Tumblr specifically for that topic is a piece of cake.

The good news to you is that, you don’t have to sign up for anything to follow along. Just visit my Tumblr and bookmark, subscribe in the RSS reader of your choice, add to LiveJournal (Try LJUser: revjim_tumblr), follow in FriendFeed, ignore it all together or, really, whatever makes you happiest.

I will more than likely start a second Tumblr for the interesting links and photos of a … less than pure nature. Drop me an email if you’re interested in a link.

So, on a fairly regular basis, I read Craigslist.

Usually I read in Dallas, but sometimes other cities.

I read the community section and the trade section and marvel at how money-centric our society is and cheer when I see something I can actually agree with or get behind or understand.

I look at the job boards and fantasize about what I could be doing and curse myself for what I’m stuck with.

I read the women seeking men section and realize how little I know about the kinds of people one might desire. I wonder how many women out there desire someone that fits my description.

I read the men seeking women and compare my tastes to what the men are looking for. Usually I’m bored. Sometimes I’m curious. Other times I’m shocked. Occasionally, I’m repulsed.

I read the casual encounters section and wonder what I’d casually seek if I were seeking casually.

I read the missed connections section and think of all the people that I’ve passed and wish I could find again. I think of all the people that I was close to that I now miss so dearly.

Except for those which obviously aren’t real (which I flag like I’m on a mission sanctioned by God himself), I rarely consider that any of the posters might be a fraud or have motives other than those outlined in their posts. It’s on the rare occasion that I do interact with the site (posting, responding) that I realize how wrong I am that I truly recognize how many traps have been set.

Today I responded to an ad in casual encounters.  I was clear at the very beginning of my response that I was merely browsing and was not actually interested in dating her but that I was intrigued by something she said. I was being nice. I realized how good it would make me feel to get an email like the one I was sending her. And I meant what I wrote, so it was genuine. I thought, at the very least, it’ll brighten her day.

Within 5 minutes she wrote back. At 6:30am, that’s a bit unusual. As soon as I opened the email I understood why. No one had even read what I wrote. The response indicated that if I wanted to hook up I should click on a link and check out her pics. I didn’t bother.

Maybe this should be the start of a mission to find truth in Craigslist.

Maybe not.