Pocket Mojo

If I’ve learned anything through my IT career when offering something new to customers it’s that adding lots of new stuff should never be at the expense of removing functionality that users have become used to having. But that’s exactly what Microsoft has done – twice. Incredibly, it’s mobile users that are suffering on both occasions. Microsoft Sync Services for Mac and Windows Phone have been dropped, leaving users moving to the two newest Microsoft products with less than what they had.

Under the previous version of Microsoft Office for Mac, customers were able to sync all their PIM data to portable devices. However, Microsoft Office 2011 lacks that functionality. Naturally, Microsoft have the excuse machine running and offered this on their Office for Mac blog.

We built Outlook for Mac as a personal information manager for users to manage their email, tasks, contacts and calendar. In the development of Outlook for Mac our goal was to make it the most reliable client for Exchange users and we feel we have done that. We still have work to do for customers not on Exchange and encourage you to read on for details.

I have Outlook 2011, but am not on Exchange. Can I sync my calendar to my iPhone (iPad, Mobile Me)?

Not today.

On another post at the same blog.

If I am not an Exchange user, can my mobile device sync mail, contacts, calendar, etc?

For users not running Exchange, you can sync contacts through Sync Services and Outlook 2011 today. We will be adding additional support in the coming months including calendar.

In other words, too bad if you relied on Sync Services – we’ll put it back soon.

For Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s make-or-break attempt to wrest back some market share in the mobile device space, the ability to sync by connecting your device to your PC has been taken away. For many users this isn’t a huge issue as cloud-based services have largely taken over as the source of syncing. However, there are a lot of people, particularly consumers rather than enterprise users, who like to sync by connecting directly.

Over at Windows Phone Thoughts, Jason Dunn summarises it perfectly.

You could hear a pin drop when Aaron Woodman announced that Windows Phone 7 would be completely cloud-centric: there would be no way to get email, calendar, contacts, or even files via the desktop…it would only come via the cloud. The repercussions of this decision were huge, and long-time Windows Mobile users were shocked when the product shipped without the ability to do any sort of local sync

It seems to me that Microsoft is under threat from many quarters. They’re way behind in the mobile device market, the PC business is changing and the desktop OS is becoming less important over time. While Microsoft has bounced back from a number of poor products (Windows ME and Vista spring to mind) and completely missing what the Internet would do  - forcing then CEO Bill Gates to issue a second edition of the The Road Ahead look at the future in very short time – I’m concerned that they’re dropping the ball on their usual product update cycle.

Many people I know think I’m the luckiest guy around. I have an enjoyable job, get to play with cool gadgets, work from home a lot of the time and get to travel from time to time.

The respected journalist Jerry Pournelle (one of the writers who inspired me to write about tech) wrote a long piece on his blog (that started in the days before the word “blog” existed!).

The essay starts with this caution

it’s easy to be an author, whether of fiction or nonfiction, and it’s a pleasant profession. Fiction authors go about making speeches and signing books. Computer authors go to computer shows and then come home to open boxes of new equipment and software, and play with the new stuff until they tire of it. It’s nice work if you can get it.

The problem is that no one pays you to be an author.

So, how do you become a journalist? It’s a hard road requiring skill, opportunity and courage but it is possible to make a living from words.

For me, it started with me writing for free for newsletters and user group communities. I also had the benefit of working in a job where I had to write a lot of documentation. That was great training as it forced me to write with clarity.

After a while, Jason Dunn was looking contributors to contribute product reviews to PocketPC Thoughts. At the time, it was a great way for me to work within an editorial team and to get some exposure. That brings me one of the few bits of advice I think I can offer to people trying to get into professional (my definition of professional means “paid”) writing.

Write a lot, make it public and learn from the comments and criticism.

Part or writing for that community involved getting to know lots of people and receiving their feedback. It also gave me confidence in my work and that, in turn, gave me confidence to approach editors and offer my services. Also, it turned out that one of the people who was Jenneth Orantia -- a well known member of the mobile device community and a freelance contributor to a local magazine, APC.

When Jenneth needed someone to fill in for her when she was going overseas she asked me if I was free and put me in contact with the editor, David Flynn (the founder and editor of Australian Business Traveller). I wrote that first story -- a product review of a couple of iPaq PDAs -- and was fortunate that David was willing to take the time to teach me a few things. One of the pieces of advice he gave, and I think is worth passing on is:

The reader of your story may have spent their $10 buying the mag just for your article. Make sure they think it was worth the money.

Even though David wasn’t the editor for much longer, the relationship with the publication remained and I wrote for the magazine regularly for another three years or so. That ongoing role lead me to two other significant elements to my career as a writer. Firstly, it gave me the confidence to pitch my work to other editors as I now had a track record of delivering content that was on time and met the editor’s brief. Secondly, it opened the door to meeting other journalists and that has led me to an extensive professional network.

What’s interesting about the Australian tech media industry is that while we all compete for stories and to be first with a story we also share resources like contacts, we pass work to each other when we’re overloaded. So we’re cooperative and competitive.

My last piece of advice for the aspiring freelancer is that your primary job is to make your editor’s life easy. That means delivering your work on time and on the brief. Sometimes it will mean working to shorter than usual deadlines as you might choose to accept work that was planned for in-house writers but couldn’t be done for some reason. And, if an editor asks you to do a job and you can’t  - don’t just say no straight away. See if you can find someone else who can do it and refer the editor  to that other writer. That way you’re still solving the editor’s problem.

One last thing -- self-employed writers often call themselves freelance journalists. I’ve come to the realisation over the last few months since I went 100% self-employed that the term freelance journalist is not an accurate description of what I do.

I’m actually a small business that sells the ability to take ideas and complex concepts and present them to an audience. Being a self employed freelancer means that you need to learn some basic business operations. You’ll need to get a business person’s understanding of maintaining your accounts, some basic marketing skills and great time management skills. Staff writers usually have all of this done for them. Freelancers need to do all of those things or make enough money to pay someone to do them.

Of course, a more cynical view is beautifully captured in this video.

Evernote is one of the most used apps on my iPad and Macs. Used on any one device it’s a great piece of software but its cloud backend, allowing notes to be synced between devices with no effort, makes it a great way to work in both the office and when on the road. Here are three reasons why, if you’re not already using Evernote, you should be.

1. It’s an invaluable research tool

Whether you’re in the local library, working online or just putting together ideas, Evernote is incredibly useful. Start by creating a Notebook for the project you’re working on. If you’re surfing the web and find something, you can use a browser extension to either send a link or the complete contents of a web page into an Evernote note.

Of course, there’s the obvious application of being able to quickly type notes as you’re doing your research.

2. Evernote is multi-platform

The reality is that we don’t always carry our laptop or iPad with us everywhere. It’s more likely that when a spontaneous idea or unexpected piece of information comes your way that it’s your smartphone that will be on hand.

The mobile version of Evernote can run on iOS devices, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm and Android devices. Simply run Evernote and make your note or record some audio. Then you can sync back to the cloud and access the information from any other device you’ve installed Evernote to.

3. Templates

Although one of the great things about Evernote is that it can capture unstructured data easily, templates can be a great way to keep things organized.

On the Mac desktop version of Evernote, create a note that has the headings and structure you want to re-use and go the File menu. Choose Export and save the File as an Evernote XML. When you want to use it, simply import the template and you’re ready to go.

Following on from my recent look at The iPad Blogging Toolkit, I’ve been getting my head around the whole SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, thing. Put simply, the application of good SEO techniques can help you get your blog further up the page ranking system of search engines. That means that when people search for something, your blog or website is more likely to come up near the top of the results.

One way to measure how your site is performing is to use the software that most web hosting companies provide. However, a more popular way of measuring how much traffic your site is attracting and, more importantly, how it’s finding you, is to use something like Google Analytics. In order for Analytics to work you need to run some specific code on all the pages you wish to measure. If, like me, you’re not interested into delving into your blog’s source code, there are WordPress plug-ins that do the legwork for you.

If you’re an iPad user, one of the hassles is that not all of the nice graphs show up on the screen. That realization meant that I needed to take a trip to the App Store. A quick search for “Google Analytics” revealed several different applications that would bring the data from Google Analytics.

Like many people I started with a free option – an app simply called Analytics. The App Store reviews seemed reasonable and the price was right.

What Analytics delivers is the same experience you’d have on a computer running a proper web browser. Graphs, tables and other visual elements appear with Analytics just as they would on a regular computer. Depending on the performance of your Internet connection, the app can feel a little slow but it wasn’t bad enough to make us want to spend money for another application.

The main stats I’m interested in are number of visitors, where they are coming from and what search terms are attracting them. Armed with those bits of data I can tweak the posts I create (using BlogPress) so that I can make sure I write content that my readers are most interested in and draws the most traffic through search engines.

This is the start of a journey for me. being able to find tools that work when I’m not at my desk is super important. Analytics is, for now, one of the tools that enables me to write relevant content that attracts visitors.

One of the other magazines I contribute to is Fast Thinking. In the Spring 2010 issue of this quarterly magazine, I’ve penned a story titled “Do You Have The Energy” and it appears online at the Fast Thinking website. Much of the research came from a sponsored trip to New Zealand I was fortunate enough to receive in March this year.

For the expansive sidebar at the end of the main stories, I interviewed one of the most colourful and interesting characters i’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. Although Warwick Davies will not likely be a household name, he is a living, breathing action man. He’s led an incredibly colourful and varied life but I suspect that the greatest achievement of his working life is the power station he’s designed that takes refuse and burns it to create energy. While that doesn’t sound special, the revolutionary part is that all of the byproducts are reused at the power plant to make all sorts of useful stuff, from potable water to asphalt, sulphur, glass and mercury that can be used in manufacturing.

It’s not just online where my words appear. In the current, November 2010, issue of CRN Magazine I’ve written a profile of Brisbane-based services and management Corpnet.

I really enjoyed interviewing the CEO, Agim Isai. He’s passionate about delivering great service and staying ahead of his competition by delivering bleeding edge tech to his customers cost effectively.

There’s also a great roundtable with members of CRN Fast50 – the 50 fastest growing tech resellers in Australia – discussing the tech trends they expect to go wild in 2011.

The next piece of the Marvel universe is set to hit the screen next year. Thor promises to be another action packed story. Although I’m not certain that Chris Hemsworth has the same screen charisma as Robert Downey as Tony Stark/IronMan he sure looks the part.

On the back of my little rant about the problems with MobileMe, this little pearl by mobility guru Jenneth Orantia has been published over at APC Magazine.

Don’t fancy parting with $119 a year for Apple’s MobileMe? Here’s how to keep most of that money in your pocket. The good news for penny pinchers is that you can get most of the features of MobileMe for next to nothing.

The truth is that MobileMe’s most compelling feature is Find my iPhone and that’s now free.

Also, Google Docs has been given an update and now works on the iPad. The story is here at ITWire.

Now, the desktop version of Docs works on the iPad although it’s not perfect.

Last but not least is my friend Roulla’s look at the latest mobile phone reseller Amaysim (it’s a play on “amazing”). Her look over at Digiknow compares Amaysim with another budget carrier Virgin.

When I totalled them up, my $35 bill would have cost $26.53 if I was on amaysim, a saving of $8.47 a month, or 24 percent. Over a year, I would save $101.64

If you’ve ever tried to compare mobile phone plans, Roulla’s methodology is worth a look as it provides a great way to make a true apples and apples comparison.

I was just reading this rant over at the new Australian version of T3 which got me thinking about something that’s been nagging at me – Apple’s MobileMe might look pretty but from a usability point of view it sucks.

Let’s start with the basics. Apple makes a big deal about “controlling the whole widget”. It means that they can control the user experience ensuring that users get the greatest stability and most consistent user experience.

A few months ago, the online components of MobileMe were given a significant face-lift making them look a lot like the equivalent apps running on an iPad. One can assume that a similar user interface will make an appearance in OS X Lion when it’s released in the middle of 2011.

One of the main additions to Mail, added in the latest refresh, was server-side rules. These allow you to have inbound messages automatically filed into folders as they arrive. This is an incredibly valuable feature for those that receive lots of email.

However, Apple has let users down with their implementation. For users who are using OS X’s Mail.app, there’s no way to take the rules created there and have them easily migrated to MobileMe. What makes this more bewildering is that Apple allows users to sync mail rules between machines using MobileMe.

Now, let’s assume that you’ve overcome that hurdle by manually recreating your rules (I had about 20 rules I relied on and have entered them into MobileMe). How do you know if a folder has unread messages? If I’m using the MobileMe website – it’s easy as the unread message count appears next to each folder. However, on an iOS device the same functionality isn’t present. The only way to find all my unread messages is to manually open and refresh each folder.

Apple needs to create an “Unread Mail” folder in MobileMe. It’s not hard to do. In fact, you can create one on your mac in Mail.app using a Smart Folder. And before the fanbois come out saying that GMail lacks such a feature – it’s dead easy to get a snapshot of your unread mail in GMail by searching for “label: unread”.

Once upon a time, when MobileMe was called .Mac, it was possible to use Apple’s online mail service to consolidate multiple email accounts. All you needed to do was give Mail POP access to your other accounts. It was easy and just worked. Apple, in “upgrading” the service took that functionality away. Sure, you can go to your other email services and have them forward email to MobileMe but not all email services allow that.

Mac Rumors recently sent a message to Steve Jobs and received a response. They asked

I love my iPad and iPhone4 and am a huge fan of yours and all that Apple does. I desperately want to stay inside of Apple’e ecosystem as much as possible.

However, MobileMe is making it very difficult for me to do so. Unreliable/unpredictable syncing, creating duplicate entries (sometimes scores of them), etc. It’s almost unusable.

And I know from forums (including Apple’s own support boards) that I am not the only one experiencing these very real and frustrating problems.

Please tell me it will get better, and soon?

Interestingly, Apple’s increasingly vocal CEO responded with a simple nine-word response.

Yes, it will get a lot better in 2011.

I really want to believe that. I recently gave a talk at my local Mac user group, iMUG, on cloud computing. In preparation for that presentation, I transitioned my main email and calendaring system from GMail to MobileMe. I figured that if I was going to talk to a Mac user group I’d better get my facts right.

For a basic user who only has one email account and doesn’t get much email then MobileMe is good enough. But the number of people who fit into that group is shrinking.

I know that a lot has happened since Microsoft released Windows 3.1 in 1992. We’ve seen user interfaces evolve significantly and an ongoing game of oneupmanship between Microsoft and Apple. However, it occurred to me while looking at OS X and the information made available by Apple regarding OS X Lion, due for release in the middle of 2011, that Apple has returned to some of the look and feel of the early 1990s.

Take a look at the following three images.

Notice that all have some similar elements. The interfaces are all application-centric. In order to do something, you need to choose the appropriate program. Although Apple’s recent systems are far more visually striking with nice icons the basic elements are the same.

I recall that when Windows 95 was released there were some cartoons around saying Win95 = Mac84. Well, perhaps there’s some comeuppance with OS X 2011 = Windows 1993.