Editor’s Note:  This just in from DOW Jones…

IBM Offers Lotus Notes For Apple’s iPhone

Sep 30, 2008 00:01:00 (ET)

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)–International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) said Tuesday it was making its Lotus Notes tools, including email and calendar applications, available for Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone.

Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM said that the latest version of Notes would allow customers to access the software via the Safari browser on the iPhone.

The iPhone, which is still primarily a consumer device, has begun to attract the interest of corporate customers as a competitor to Research In Motion Ltd.’s (RIMM) BlackBerry device, since Apple launched a software developers’ kit allowing anyone to develop applications for the phone and making it easier for the phone to be connected to corporate IT systems. Network operators have begun offering corporate tariffs for the iPhone.

When Apple launched a 3G version of the iPhone in June, the company’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, said that 35% of the Fortune 500 companies had signed up to trial the phone.

Other business software companies including Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and SAP AG (SAP), offer software for the iPhone.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 30, 2008 00:01 ET (04:01 GMT)

 Image from TechShout.com

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I’ve been coming to CTIA and other similar events for something like ten years now.  During that time I’ve seen plenty of developments and more than my fair share of truly creative solutions to many of the challenges that have presented themselves to the developers of software for mobile communications devices.  Like every industry the mobile telecommunications industry has its own cyclic nature.  In the case of wireless it seems to me that this cycle consists of new technological ground being broken, early entrants race to bring their solutions to market, the most successful solutions achieve positions of market dominance, the largest players in the industry either acquire or duplicate the market leading technology and those same leading companies further affirm their positions atop the growing market.

This final stage in the innovation/consolidation cycle seems to have been the dominant theme of this year’s CTIA.  Over the past several years there have been a number of technologies that have been moving towards a more mature state - the principal one being mobile video.  While still to a certain degree being the province of the early adopter, mobile video has now matured sufficiently that it is reasonably accessible to just about any consumer in a primary market.

There are two different aspects to mobile video that have been maturing independently from one another; streaming video (and also downloadable video) distributed to mobile end-points via both specialized as well as undifferentiated services an example of the former being BlueApple.mobi while an example of the latter is YouTube.com, and live action video captured by the phone itself and they either broadcast in real time or uploaded to a number of websites for later viewing and archiving.

The second aspect of mobile video is somewhat less mature but still has a number of companies that are firmly on the road to becoming both ready for prime time as well as reasonably ready for a prime mainstream user experience.  Characterized by companies like Qik  and Flixwagon they are making it possible to stream live video directly from one phone to another (via the Internet) as well as from phone to PCs, Macs, or any other device with a fully functional web browser.

These interactive applications even let the viewers communicate with the person creating the video stream by allowing a sort of return instant messaging feature.  In the case of Qik a program that I frequently use to stream conferences to the web so that people can see them in real time, the software not only streams the content live, it also archives that content under my username and allows me to determine if I want to keep it private and allow only those people I expressly specify to view the content or make it public and allow anyone interested to view it.

Both Qik and Flixwagen allow individual videos to be embedded in other locations for example on your own blog or other personal page.  Neither of these applications allows you to deliver video of incredible quality and in my experience the audio is marginal at best but considering the amount of compression that must be taking place for this to work at all it is a pretty extraordinary thing to have turned your regular phone into a webcam a video camera or even a video telephone when you stop and think about it.

Aside from the above mentioned video end of things the only big change that is worth mentioning is the sheer number of developers that have begun to focus heavily on developing software for the iPhone.  The iPhone App Store is in many respects the biggest revelation in the mobile realm this past year even though it isn’t a true revelation at all with both Nokia (via their “Download” application) and the iPhone Dev Team with Installer.app both being earlier entries into this space.  Even though both Nokia and the iPhone Dev Team were there first and in the case of the Dev Team basically had developed an identical solution (in my opinion Apple took huge amounts of functionality and copied it exactly from the Dev Team’s work) the difference was that Apple had the ability to directly insert this new software into the millions of devices that were already in consumers hands as well as put in on the iPhone 3G in advance.

This gave them a huge bump up in terms of the number of people actually looking at installable third party applications for the device.  When combined with a brain-dead simple installation process for every application in the App Store, plus billing to your credit card exactly like the familiar iTunes this was a sure winner and this has been proven quite obviously with over 100 million applications downloaded and nearly $50,000,000 in revenues generated in just about three months.

The one key thing missing from this year’s CTIA was the one that everyone is anxiously awaiting; Google’s Android.  The first phone is slated to debut on September 23rd, courtesy of T-Mobile and HTC.  With a totally open, open-source operating system that purportedly allows the developer unfettered access to virtually every aspect of a device expecations are very high that we will see some truly remarkable software available for Android devices in short order.

I suppose this bodes well for the next CTIA coming in the spring of 2009.  I sure hope so anyway.  Going to these events and seeing the same tired hardware, the same tired booths and the same tired vendors gets…well…tiresome and leaves me feeling like I could have been doing something more productive then looking for something new and exciting when nothing new and exciting was in the offing.  At any rate, I am pretty certain that the next CTIA will be considerably more interesting that this one was.  Between Android,the iPhone 3G’s new applications once the developers have had more time with the SDK and some pretty cool stuff I’ve heard Nokia has up their sleeves, I am optimistic that 2009 will reverse the consolidation not innovation trend and I can start my report with the headline Innovation not Consolidation at Spring CTIA.  Here’s hoping anyway…

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GTD Times › Edit — WordPressBaron VC, a site not generally known for GTD content has done a nice job reviewing Appigo ToDo which is $9.99 from the iPhone App Store.  If you’re looking for a nice straightforward to do application it sounds as if Appigo ToDo will fit the bill nicely.  From Baron VC’s Review:

The reason why I chose the iPhone to revive my GTD workflow is simple: ubiquity. I will always have my phone with me no matter where I go. Out of all the apps I chose Appigo’s Todo ($9.99) simply because it is the best one out there. It syncs with web services Remember the Milk and Toodledo but works perfectly fine as a standalone. I spend my time at work in front of a Windows pc but use a mac at home so some kind of web service integration is a must. I use Remember the Milk simply because it has a good feature set and there are a variety of tools for posting tasks, such as twitter. So far Appigo Todo is the only native iPhone app that has web synchronization built in.

For more pay a vist to the Baron VC site directly here.

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Having a trusted reminder system is a critical success factor for GTD.   Given GTD is really an approach that is tool agnostic, nearly any tool will work as long as you have the right ingredients.

I laughed when I read a blog recently where someone tried swiping at GTD saying that “GTD is for techies only.”  David Allen’s roots in working this methodology, as well as my own, come from the paper planner world.  You can’t get much more low-tech than that.  In fact, some of the most elegant and accessible lists I’ve seen are paper ones.  Sure, there’s the rewrite factor of paper, but electronic list managers have the “over-featured” trap to watch out for. There are pros and cons to both.  I say, go with what works best for you.

Some of the most technically savvy people I know manage their lists on paper to shift their consciousness away from all of their electronic input.  It’s a fantastic pattern interrupt to switch over to a paper list when you stand in front of a fire hose of email and the Internet all day long. There’s also almost a zero learning curve with a paper system.  And, if you’re building it yourself from blank paper, you have a ton of flexibility on what it looks like.

So for any of you looking for a hard copy GTD system, with ingredients you can likely find around in your house or office, here’s what to do:

1.  Go to your graveyard of old 3-ring binders  (every company has one!) and find one you like.
2.  Find some divider tabs   (if you can’t find some, Post-it notes or flags will work to delineate each section.)
3.  Grab a stack of blank paper from your copier or supply closet and hole punch it into the binder.
4.  Download this free article on Setting up a Paper Organizer  from the GTD store and assemble the sections.
5.  Populate the lists with your complete inventory.

If you can’t find all those supplies at hand, even buying them from your local stationary supply store would only run about $6.  Could you spend more than $6?  Sure.  You could really trick it out with a leather binder and high-quality paper.  If you’re choosing one of the many web-based electronic systems out there, you’ll want to make it accessible from anywhere–especially when you’re offline.  This kind of paper system would work well if you’re doing a hybrid of digital and paper.  For example, electronic lists could be your home-base, but you print key lists to a binder for easy access and portability.

Next time you walk into a meeting, notice how many people have a paper lists or printed calendar with them. It’s more common than you think. If it’s your style to do things on paper, do yourself a favor and create a great hard copy system.

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A few weeks back, Duracell contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in testing out their new pre-charged rechargeable batteries.  These are nickel metal hydride batteries that come in a variety of common sizes including AAA and AA.  Being a gadget guy with more devices than I know what to do with I can always use batteries so I said yes.

When I found a use for the new batteries I did something I’ve never been able to do with a rechargable batter before: I was able to open the package, insert it into the device and turn the device on, all without having to charge the batteries first.  This is one of those “Homer Simpson - DOH!- moments” where you wonder why no one thought of this before.  In retrospect how stupid are these battery companies that sell you a device that is useless out of the box and is only functional after you’ve invested hour waiting with it plugged into a power source and costing you addtional money.

As far as I can tell these batteries perform as well if not better than the nickel metal hydride Duracell batteries that I had before only without the wait.  Cool.

The company has a promotion related to this with an online “Museum of the Obvious“. -  it’s a bit bandwidth intensive so have a fat pipe if you want to spend a few minutes being amused.

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Frank Tomizuka has just posted a great tutorial on how to make your very own hipster PDA over at Instructables - the world’s largest “How To” website.  For those of you that have never heard of a Hipster PDA, Merlin Mann introduced the idea over at 43Folders way back in September of 2004.  If you’d like a decidedly lower tech solution instead of a high tech device this may be just what you’re looking for…

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My friend and mentor Andy Abramson who authors the excellent blog, Working Anywhere.  He has just posted an article called Tools of the Global Nomad that is a must-read for anyone that does any serious amount of work while on the road as well as folks that work from home but have the needs (or wants) of services comparable to those that any reasonably sized and appropriately equipped enterprise would have.

Andy’s list of service providers is very comprehensive however there’s one company missing and I think it is a vital one to have on your list if you travel in Europe at all and especially if you rely on mobile data in any way, shape, or form.  That company is Yoigo.  They’re a telecommunications service provider that sells 3G sim cards that work just about everywhere in Europe.  The deal with them is that for about the equivalent of $1.25 per day you get unlimited voice and data with your own new international number.

These SIM cards are sold all over the place - you can get them at grocery stores, tobacco shops, etc.  These cards, in and of themselves are enough reason to unlock your iPhone if you are planning on going to Europe.  They mean the difference between being connected or not being connected (or being connected and not coming home to a $17,000 data bill - no I am not joking - I really did get one of those!)

Among the providers Andy lists are:

PhoneFusion,  GrandCentral , Jazinga,  Boingo , Skype, MaxRoam, GizmoProject, Truphone, Mobivox and many others. This is one of those “print it out and save it” sort of posts as it references a ton of best of class providers that can make it a lot easier and more economical to get things done and look good doing it.

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One of our challenges in implementing GTD across our organization was to change our people’s habit of keeping stuff in their heads and get them to start actually using an external tool for collection. As you might imagine, if there were leaks in “Collect” process we simply couldn’t go ahead with the other stages of Gaining Control. Of course change always happens slowly. So we continuously stressed the benefits of collecting in an external system at our Weekly GTD Training meetings and I would occasionally send motivational reminder emails, like the one below:

Hi everybody,

A reminder to all to collect 100%. Currently as I’m sitting at my
desk, I see John on the phone, Ram on the phone and & Steve
having a discussion with Omer, but NOBODY’s
collecting. Even if you feel, “oh C’mon, have we got to collect this too,
but this is nothing important”, please do so. Only if we over-collect, for the
sake of collecting only, shall it become a habit. Once it becomes a
habit then we’ll start collecting the really useful stuff.

Take care everybody & All the best,
Arif

I admit I was going through quite an over-enthusiastic GTD Phase and was highly motivated to have a team around me that was GTD ready. But I was confident that it was a change for the better that would appreciated by all once we get there.
Well, of all the measures we have taken to fire up everybody to collect, the one that was most appreciated was when we designed a personalized pocket-note-taking pad for ourselves. After all David Allen does say that one of the best way to charge yourself to implement GTD is to get some cool gear. If you really have to collect always, you’ve got to have the tools around you to do so. I had experimented with several note-taking pads, including the David Allen Official Note pad that comes with his Note-taker Wallet, but none of them seemed just right. For some either the size was too small, or it was not too easy to tear off a page once you had completed jotting down what you needed to, none of them had a cool snazzy design.
Our criteria of a good note-taker wallet was:

1. It had to look good. So good that it mad a style statement. The user’s gotta feel like keeping it with him always and whipping it out when it came time to collect something.

2. The size had to be small enough to carry in your pocket, yet large enough to fit a mind map in there if you needed to.

3. One should be able to rip the paper out really easily once he’s captured something. Most of the note-pads I had seen were either spiral bound or micro-perforated. I’ve experienced that the spiral bound notepads, don’t tear off really easily when there are too few pages left in the pad. And the micro-perforated ones need you to hold the upper section of the notepad in one hand so that you can left the bottom portion of the page and tear it off.

4. The pages should not be ruled. So if anybody wants to draw something e.g. a route-map, mind map or an engineering drawing (we are a Construction Company), it would be really simple to do so

So after very intensive R&D we arrived at our first prototype. Ta-da:

The Design is something that everyone appreciated, even Leslie Boyer Harradine (Official David Allen Trainer) complemented us on it when she was down here.

Well there you have it. We first thought we’d put these notepads up for sale to the GTD community, but then since that was not really priority, we said, let’s just have it for in-house use. Anyway, Feel free to copy any of these to make your own personalized Capture Tool. Would love to hear your thoughts on the above. And if you do implement these, please do post what sort of reactions you have from the people using them. I eventually see this being like a trademark, that all Vakil Housing employees carry this particular brand and style of notepad with them.

This is the Second Installment in the series of Posts for Rolling out GTD at Vakil Housing. You can see, the first post in the series here.

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Nokia’s Sexiest Phone Ever

I’m still shaking my head in wonder at the new Nokia E71.  Is this really a phone by Nokia? This phone, which is barely thicker than the battery that powers it, is one of the all time sexiest phones I have ever seen.  Hardly the sort of device made by the company that is to phones what Russia is to tanks and assault rifles.

Don’t get my wrong.  I’m a die hard Nokia fan.  I have many, many Nokia phones and I use them every single day.  A least 8 of my lifetime top ten favorite devices have been Nokia phones but that doesn’t mean that I am so blinded by my Nokia gadget lust that I fail to see that Nokia usually makes phones more like tanks than like jewelry.  This is not in and of itself altogether a bad thing.  Nokia phones are by far the most durable, reliable and functional devices of their sort bar none.

But sexy?  That’s hardly  a word you see in conjunction with most Nokia devices.  Until now.

Did I mention that the E71 is thin?  How thin? It’s a bit difficult to measure something this thin but my guess is that it’s between 6 and 7 mm at the thickest point.  What’s amazing is that in spite of the svelte package this is as fully featured a device as Nokia has ever introduced.

Let me give you a quick rundown on the specifications:

Form

• Form: Candy bar with full keyboard
• Dimensions: 4.49 x 2.24 x 0.39 in
• Weight: 4.47 oz
• Full keyboard
• High quality QVGA display

Display and 3D

• Size: 2.36″
• Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA)
• Up to 16 million colors
• TFT active matrix (QVGA)
• Two customizable home screen modes

Connectors

• Micro-USB connector, full-speed
• 2.5 mm Nokia AV connector

Power

• Battery: BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-Po standard battery
• Talk time:
  - GSM up to 10 h 30 min
  - WCDMA up to 4 h 30 min
• Standby time:
  - GSM up to 17 days
  - WCDMA up to 20 days
  - WLAN idle up to 6.9 days
• Music playback time (maximum): 18 h

Memory

• microSD memory card slot, hot swappable, max. 8 GB
• ~110 MB internal dynamic memory

A down-loadable PDF with the comprehensive specifications can be found here: nokia_e71_complete_specifications.pdf

As you no doubt noticed the device has GSM, Edge, UMTS, HSDPA, WiFi and a GPS radio.  It also has a huge battery - the same battery, in fact, that comes in the much larger N810 Internet Tablet so you can pretty well anticipate that this phone is going to have about the best battery life of any phone you’ve ever used.

What does it do?

Out of the box it has support for Microsoft exchange mail as well as for Blackberry mail, though for that you’ll have to pay a subscription fee to Rimm. Out of the box it also has the ability to auto-detect your network settings and configure your services automatically so no holding for hours while someone at your carrier tries to look up how to set up MMS on your handset, it just configures itself.

[Read more →]

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TUAW is reporting that “Outpost“, an application still under development, will make Basecamp even more useful by supporting management of the application via your iPhone. Details are still fairly sparse at this time and it looks like we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to really see what the folks building Outpost are doing with their UI as even the images on their website state that they are under development and subject to change.

A lot of people are pretty excited about this developing software.  Basecamp, by 37 signals is a very popular application, and many folks that follow the GTD productivity strategy have found that Basecamp is one of the most efficient and effective tools for helping to keep track of commitments, projects and the next actions that they entail.

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