Lost In Madison

I like the concept but honestly I am disappointed.

Pros:
• Light weight
• Simple Interface
• Clean looking
• Supports the apps/stuff I already have on my iPhone
• Some of the current apps look really neat ( like the calendar )

Cons: ( Not a lot but HUGE for me )
• Forced into buying apps from app store, I can’t install software
• No front faced camera ( No video, pictures or Skype like software )
• No eSata or USB ports ( I’m forced to use whatever devices Apple makes me buy rather than my USB keyboard, mouse, web cam or external hard drive for more space )
• Still no flash support
• Still no multitasking
• To small ( I would have liked to see it be the same size as a legal pad )
• 3G ( if I want 3G access I have to pay AT&T an additional $30.00/mo ON TOP of what I already pay for service, now we know why the tethering feature never came to us for our phones. It would have killed this additional revenue stream for AT&T )

I suppose what I really was hoping for in the end was a iPad that had the same functionality as a laptop. I know that sounds like a tablet PC but I don’t want the bulky tablet feel. However with that said I think it still has its market place. People like my mother or people who want to move in a better direction than “netbooks” now have an inexpensive option. I consider myself a power user when it comes to computing devices so if I am going to get something like an iPad I would want to be able to do EVERYTHING that I can currently do on my desktop. I have an iPhone for all the rest, I don’t need an overgrown iPod touch. I will have to wait until next year to see if some of these items get addressed.

I will try to make this as complete as possible, forgive me if I miss something. This is a hack for WordPress and uses several plugins along with the code below to show podcast information. I wrote this hack because after much searching I could not find the “controllable” answer I was looking for. I am sure that someone out there has either done this before or has a much simpler way to do this, but this is MY way of handling this problem.
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Capture. Sync. Find. That’s the tag line for Evernote. And in my opinion it’s accurate! Read more…

I like to shop online. And I know most of you do too. I was watching some of Chris Pirillo’s videos and watched one about MonkeyJar.com [click here to watch it] it’s a way to earn cash back on everything we buy, and it’s real easy to use. Read more…

Late last night I received an email from the Google Voice Team:

Subject: You’ve been invited to Google Voice
From: Google Voice [voice-noreply@google.com]
To: josh@lostinmadison.com

You are invited to open a free Google Voice account. To accept this invitation and create your account, visit
*Activation link… sorry can’t show you that*
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After doing some testing I think I am going to make my move to using Twitter as my new form of instant messenger. Now most of you that are familiar with Twitter will think “It’s not an instant messenger!”, but I am going to show you how I use it to make it more like one.
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Ok so we all know social networks is the big thing these days, and it seems the more you join the better… Right?? Well at some point you begin to loose track of where you are and what you are doing. This is the case for me. I only belong to 8 Social Network type sites + my own personally hosted blog, but it started to become very difficult to keep all of them well groomed. I needed a solution, and so far I think I may have found it. Keep in mind this is a mix of stuff that I use to attempt to stay on top of my social status.

First off my blog is my #1 location period. If everything was to fall away for simplicity sake, my blog would still be standing. With that said here is my list of other locations I belong to in basic order of importance to me.

Picasa Photo Albums = My online photo Albums
FaceBook = Couple of friends had it so I had to also, right?
Linkedin = Couple of friends had it so I had to also, right?
Twitter = Couple of friends had it so I had to also, right?
Delicious = My solution to my bookmarking woes.
YouTube = Location to host any random videos I want.
Pandora = My music site

So how do I manage these spots? Ok here is the break down…

Picasa Photo Albums is managed with the Picasa photo software (it’s free from Google). Oh yea, if your not using this you really should be! It’s just that awesome!

Twitter, FaceBook and Linkedin are are updated via a 3rd party solution called Ping.fm to which I send a text msg or IM to, this is used for those short bursts of information rather than long blog stuff.

Delicious, YouTube are directly accessed by me.

Loopt is a new toy that allows my friends to see where I am at and me to see where they are at, it’s tied to my iPhone. I am sure they have a service for other mobile phones as well.

Confused yet? Good!

So here is how it works…

I make a post on my blog.. let’s say, THIS POST.. I then send an IM or SMS to Ping.com, something like “hey check out my new post at www.lostinmadison.com” who will make a short post to Twitter, FaceBook and Linkedin. Simple right.

The goal here is to drive you BACK to my main blog, remember I just want to keep one location up to date.

As for the Picasa, Delicious, Pandora and YouTube? After I have made my updates to those specific locations, they automatically appear in my blog. Delicious links are on the right, along with Pandora. The Picasa web album link is under the About Me section (along with all the Social Networks) and YouTube videos or specific photo albums will show up in blog posts as I want them to appear.

I also have my iPhone with me 24/7 and have all of these apps on it as well. In a pinch I can do any of the above things right from my phone if I really wanted to.

So now I am curious, how do you handle your Social Networks?

Ok so I was over at one of the geek sites I like to visit (http://chris.pirillo.com/) and during one of his live feeds he reviewed a site (http://www.typeracer.com). What is TypeRacer? Here is what they call it…

The online typing competition, TypeRacer, is a multiplayer typing game where you race others by typing quotes from popular books, movies, and songs.

Ok so ya sounds very geekish but trust me it’s fun. So far I am at a Pro level with an average WPM of 55 and have won 8 out of the 14 races I have been in. I think I have come in 2-3rd on the other ones. 55 WPM is not something to really brag about, but hey I am doing better than some people. So go give it a shot and let me know what your WPM is. If we can catch each other on at the same time we can even have a private race!

Most of you are like me and have a delicious account already.  If you are not aware of what delicious is then you really need to read this http://delicious.com/help/learn.  However, to put it in a real simple term, it is designed for you to keep, tag and share your bookmarks online.

Why would you want to do that?  Well if you are anything like me you have multiple computers that you work on.  This is the best way to take your bookmarks anywhere you go when you are in the ongoing fight to keep your data the same in all locations.  You can literally access your bookmark information anywhere in the world as long as you have internet access.

I am constantly working in multiple locations.  From home, office, on the road, or where there are no computers.  I basically need to have my data at my fingertips everywhere I go.  If I can’t access my home computer or my office computer then I definitely will be able to get it on my iPhone.  Delicious is just one of the tools that I use daily in my quest to keep ALL my data in front of me 24/7 – 365.  I guess that might make me an information and tech junkie…  I am OK with that.

I will start to bring you some of the tools I use to accomplish this task in future posts.  I hope you find some of the items as useful as I do.  Also if you have any items you use to keep you on top of your information everywhere PLEASE let me know!

You have to see this. I did a demo of the PhotoSynth software and holly shit its amazing. I can’t wait to see where this will end up.
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