Mobile technology in Edinburgh saves human limbs!

Edinburgh, UK

Scotland's Edinburgh proves mobile technology makes things you do faster, easier and more productive. Mobile can make things tremendously more pleasant. A lot of mobile promises for tourists and/or business travelers used to end up disappointing with slowness or lack of availability when desperately needed most. One of the biggest cities of UK cracks a whip on inconvenience and sequential way of doing things.


My wife and I spent a weekend in Edinburgh, UK. I packed lightly and caught a flight to Glasgow. Yes, Glasgow - I felt like checking out Edinburgh's main transit stations on a train ride from Glasgow via ScotRail. That is where a list of positive mobile experiences begins:

1. Relax, stretch and quiet down while getting your mobile gear in order
2. Let your phone tell  you what's hot in the area
3. Scan to get in-the-know
4. Love mobile versions of websites
5. Mobile payment at your coffee shop
6. Buy a ticket on your phone and avoid losing a limb

Relax, stretch and quiet down while getting your mobile gear in order

I realized that getting a 1st class ticket might be an overkill. In comparison to WizzAir, ScotRail has a royal treatment for you in 1st class. Super comfy, adjustable and large seats' space give access to working outlets. You don't hunch at an outlet in a restroom to get some juice in your smartphone's battery. While it's charging you are pampered with newly implemented WiFi on the train. 

Let your phone tell you what's hot in the area

Princess Street in Edinburgh is stuffed with mobile technology stores including mobile/cellular carriers. As of March 22nd 2013, 10 GBP will get you 500MB of internet connectivity from Vodafone, while stores like EE will hook you up with UNLIMITED bandwidth for 16 pounds (among many other options). Let your phone devour that pure Scottish bandwidth. Foursquare can tell you what's sponsored or what your friends recommend, but if not too many of your connections on 4sq frequent the British Islands, a mobile app called Welcome to Scotland with provide recommendations. Download it via WiFi while on the train, have a game plan for your trip by the time you get to your destination.

Scan to get in-the-know

As you stroll around Edinburgh, your eyes tend to catch those white-and-black collections of tiny squares called QR codes. Hold your phone to it for a second or two and find out more about bus tours, attractions of the area or stores as you pass them along enchanting Princes Street.

Love mobile versions of websites

It's hard not to get yourself enclosed in horizons defines by beautiful outlines of old castles. Google random two keywords "castle edinburgh" and you'll find local castle's website. Not that full size, flash-bloated and overwhelming portal for PCs with 21" monitors. Mobile version of the site will provide more than you need to know IN AN INSTANT. It's super fast and it has all the info you might need to know while a female companion hold your arm in awe of admiration. Seriously, the days of mobile versions of sites being border-line useless are over according to webmasters on the east coast of Scotland.

Mobile payment at your coffee shop

Starbucks' mobile payment success is so yesterday's news, but you can't yet use it in every storefront on the globe. Certain regions that host Starbucks may still have security, technology or staff training restrictions preventing coffee connoisseurs from the fastest and most convenient method of payment known to mankind. Scotland is not one of those regions - quite the contrary, those squiggly rotating scanning devices are ready to go in multiple locations of Edinburgh. After you freeze your ass off and make a caffeine pit stop at Seattle's famous coffee giant, the last thing you desire is to sift through foreign currency to pay for anything. Waving Starbucks mobile app on your phone screen is much faster, easier and more pleasant.

Buy a ticket on your phone and avoid losing a limb

Last weekend was horrendously cold in Edinburgh. Strong gusts of wind would sometimes sway us front side to side as we walked yet another crossing of Rose Street. Several degrees below zero combined with strong wind that makes snow fall vertically freezes your butt off. A walk up to the top of a tall castle hill overlooking entire city and providing a glimpse of the shoreline makes your limbs feel stiff by the time you get to the main gate where the ticket office is. Half a mile long serpentine-shaped queue is the last thing your frozen butt wants to see on a blistering cold day. Pull out your phone, recall castle's mobile site, tap Buy Tickets, enter your credit card number from the comfort of a nearby general info booth. Quick print from a ticket terminal gets you back on track, while the ticket center's multiple windows handled perhaps 3 spots from the queue. Had we waited on that queue we would most likely end up in barderline-amputation-severity frost bites.

For that reason, I dare to claim that

" Mobile technology in Edinburgh saves human limbs! "

If you don't believe it, share your insights below. Intrigued to find out your thoughts on mobile in Scotland.
Happy journeys!

Coffee. Smartphone. Music. Easy.

Starbucks Mobile App - tap Messages

Remember times when all guns were pointed at Napster? Music industry was forced to undergo a seismic shift since those days and so did technology. But there were times in the past when technology disappointed with half-baked solutions that only geeks (like me) had patience to deal with. These days mobile technology really makes listening to quality new music cheaper, faster, easier and more productive than even before. Coffee lovers already now know how Starbucks mobile app is a great example of that.  

Apple's iTunes system provides a way to not only buy but also redeem gifts or retrieve content downloadable for free with coupons. To get a piece of free music like that, the most optimistic case scenario would call for the following routine:

1. Drive to one of Starbucks store locations in your area
2. Get the coupon (paper slip with a scratch-off) from a Starbucks Store
3. Connect to WiFi on your iPhone or any other iDevice
4. Open iTunes
5. Dig up a spot where you could redeem your coupon
6. Type in your cryptic coupon code
7. Type it in again because it's borderline impossible to get it right the first time
8. Wait for iTunes reaction. If you survived until this step, please continue to be patient
9. Wait for the download to start
10. Check when the download completes
11. Navigate your Purchased and/or Downloaded section of the music player on your iDevice

Oooph! 11 steps?! There's got to be a better way to see what our trusted brands have to suggest and offer to us. 

The answer to that cry is mobile technology, beautifully integrated and smoothly connected. As +Dirk Talamasca points out, you can do magic with the Starbucks mobile app, but I think...  

... this time technology really makes your life easier

1. Install a free Starbucks app
2. Open it and tap once on Messages
3. Tap once on Pick of the Week
4. Tap Download Now

That's it. As graphics below show, after about a minute, that song gets added to your playlist while you sip your grande Caramel Macchiato. No crashes. No syncing through a USB cable. No typing. No BS. Piece of everyday technology in your hand just:

• connected your coffee shop with your phone
• plugged your phone right into a music store
• provided a piece of latest and trending music to you
• seamlessly added a new song to your playlist
• saved you time, made your life faster, easier and more productive
• saved you money, and you didn't even have to switch to Geico

I bet +Courtney Engle Robertson or +Peg Fitzpatrick would agree when I say "How awesome is that!" That's what technology should be to people - a way to make our lives easier.

Starbucks Mobile App - Tap once on Pick of The Week

Starbucks Mobile App - Tap Download Now

Starbucks Mobile App - Just wait a quick minute

Starbucks Mobile App - Your music is downloading automatically

Starbucks Mobile App - Your music is already added to your playlist

Starbucks Mobile App - 1 minute from opening the app, new cool music is playing on your iDevice or an Android

Samsung Galaxy S4 | Life Companion is knocking it out of the park

Samsung Galaxy S4 Unpacked - New York - March 14th 2013

There is so much new going on in Samsung Galaxy S4. They call it the Life Companion

Techy, dry yet impressive improvements are:  

1. Network: 3G (HSPA+ 42Mbps) : 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 Mhz
2. Display: 4.99 inch Full HD Super AMOLED [1920x1080] display [441 ppi]
3. OS version: Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
4. Main Camrea (Rear): 13 megapixel AF camera with Flash & Zero Shutter Lag BIS
5. Sub Camera (Front): 2 megapixel camera, Full HD recording830fps with Zero Shutter Lag BIS
6. Video: Codec: MPEG4, H 262, DivX, DivX3.11, VC-1, VP8, WMV7/8, Sorenson Spark, HEVC 
7. Video Recording and Playback: Full HD1080p
8. Audio: Codec: MP3, AMR-NB/WB, AAC/AAC+, WMA, OGG, FLAC, AC-3, apt-X
9. Connectivity: WiFi a/b/g/n/ac [HT80], GPS/GLONASS, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 [BLE], IR LED (Remote control) MHL 2.0
10. Sensor: Accelerometer, RGB light, Digital Compass, Proximity, Gyro, Barometer, IR Geature, Temperature & Humidity
11. Memory: 2GB LPDDR3 RAM, 16 / 32 / 64 GB User Memory + microSD (up to 64GB)
12. Dimension: 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9mm, 130g
13. Battery: 2600mAh

Those fancy features could lead to the following applications:

1. Screen reacts to a touch through a glove
2. You can embed yourself in a video that you are taking
3. You can embed yourself in a picture that you are taking
4. You can have a 3-way video call that uses both front and back cameras at the same time while also displaying the 3rd video feed on the screen
5. S Transation: Voice to text and text to speech translation. 9 Languages
6. Library of communication phrases in multiple languages available even without network connectivity
7. Faster internet connection
8. Wider range of supported connection technologies
9. Backup and restore from any other smartphone with any other mobile OS 
10. Air Gesture
11. Smart Scroll / Pause: phone automatically pauses if you look away
12. S Health: connected to exercise gadgets though many of the new sensors
13. S Voice Drive: Voice activated handsfree operation of the maps and built in GPS
14. Voice activated message reading and writing
15. Drama Shot feature - 100 shots in a second lets you pick the best one
16. Eraser: let's you pick an area from a picture and erase with one tap
17. Air View: just like on your Samsung Note but using just your finger, not the stylus anymore
18. Adapt Display: makes images more comfortable for your eyes to watch
19. Story Album: automatic album creating feature - you just pick a template for a cover and for the pages and / or add text to pictures 
20. Blurb integration: $10-$ 30 for a hardcopy album of shots from your Story Album
21. Home Sync Device: ability to display newly takes picture at home while their being taken. 1 TB of cloud storage for your pictures and videos taken with Galaxy S4. Up to 8 users and each of them can have their own chunk of the storage. View content on a home TV in Full HD
22. Samsung Hub: videos, games, books, learning with an intuitive magazine feature
23. Samsung Knox: lock your device down to keep it safe - separate your phone info personal and corporate side of things. Privacy for you, security for your manager
24. Group Play: turn up to 8 Samsung Galaxy S4 Devices into a multichannel boombox. It also allows you to share pictures and videos
25. Accessories: S view cover (see what's happening without opening the cover), flip cover, pouch

That was an impressive Unpacking show. It's hard to pick a favorite new feature. I think I like that 1TB Home Sync the most... 

What's your favorite?

You can watch a repeat of Samsung Galaxy S4 Unpacked show online. Alternative URL will also point you to YouTube.

Bokeh Effect for Your New LinkedIn Profile

In his list of suggestions for optimal social media presence, Michael Hyatt mentions a number of steps to improve your  social media profile picture. He suggests "Bokeh". We partially see that effect on  pages advertising LinkedIn's New Profiles. Wouldn't it be nice if that feature actually bled into the profile areas as well?

"Bokeh" is one of photographer's techniques that blur picture's background while keeping focus on your own image. LinkedIn invites us to use their new set of features while rotating a very professional looking banner. They seem to partially refer back to Michael's suggestion. The focus is on you, "rockstar" professional, in familiar surroundings, on your own turf that doesn't overshadow your persona:

"Bokeh" alike effect of blurring picture backgrounds

In some ways, the screenshot above also resembles Twitter's user profile heading, but LinkedIn kicks is up a notch. In the graphic below, we don't necessarily see the blurring effect, but the profile owner has an option of adding yet another layer of info about his social media presence. Mr. Marczynski is an interesting podcaster as well as editor, and the background image helps him emphasize that. His profile stands out among the tweeting crowd.

Background image effect in Twitter mobile app

I'm not claiming that all social platforms should be alike. I just thought it might be beneficial to achieve the effect of Przemek's setup or invitational marketing banner with David Fleming's sample on actual New LinkedIn Profiles as well.

Would you like the top of your LinkedIn Profile to look like the screenshot with David's face on it? Let me know in your comments or on G+.

6 Must-See Changes in New LinkedIn Profiles

New LinkedIn Profiles have been available only to limited audience by invitation since October of 2012. I thought I would be worth sharing what those enhancements have in store for us. 

Changes on LinkedIn were labeled as "New LinkedIn Profile" for the simple reason that they bring a lot of newly polished collection of features that make others stand out on Google+ pages, Twitter profile views or blogs. While some of them may already be very familiar, they's been rejuvenated with  a subtle facelift:


There were 3 main ways in which new profiles make your relationship building easier, but enhancements don't stop at those items. All of us should catch 6 main areas of change:

1. Making a great first impression

2. Discovering new insights. Learn about your network and how you're found



3. Professional conversations. Share what you're working on, or that interesting article you're read



4. Telling your professional story. Build your experience, accomplishments, and skills for life



5. Letting your network know what's on your mind. Faster, easier and more productive ways to connect and build relationships

I'm hoping that new and improved features will keep multiplying on LinkedIn. I like what I'm seeing so far. I wonder what others think about those changes. 

Will those changes really make our networking faster, easier and be more productive? Let me know what you think in comments below.

3 Aspects of New LinkedIn Profile that Provide a Better Way to Connect and Build Relationships

LinkedIn has been stepping up the game over the last couple of years. They kept bringing fresh perspectives to the table and attracting solid professional bonds in an easy to swallow pill. Recently introduced, New LinkedIn Profile, only available through invitations as of October 2012 seems to revolutionize how we digest content on that networking platform and how we socialize with other connected professionals.

Meet the New LinkedIn Profile, offered only by invitation

Authors point out several main areas of functional and usability change. Aside from specific technical tweaks, I thought that there are at least 3 ways that the New LinkedIn Profile seems better than the current environment:

1. You are the rockstar! All of a sudden, you, your name, your picture and your professional image are in focus. The eye is drawn to subtly and cleanly arranged basic info about you in soft color tones and polite edges of grouped content
2. Pro-blogger-like look and feel. We're jumping from lots and lots of info on boring white background to succinct relevant and most recent info about the rockstar - you
3. Consistent and familiar user interface experience. We're shifting from boxes of various sizes, shapes, different edges and unique routing styles to uniformly outlined areas on the screen that resemble look and feel of the most successful and most frequently visited professional sites. They seems to have merged the the best features of successful blogs like http://michaelhyatt.com, loved Twitter profile pages or the most sought out Google+ pages. 

Preview sample of the New LinkedIn Profile

Some could call them copycats, I call them brilliant.

I believe I had my fair share of updates and enhancements tested on me at www.LinkedIn.com over the last 8 years. Some of them felt like disjoint add-ons of various shapes, sizes and colors. For instance, I could never nicely and easily sync my TripIt gadget or make it blend well with the rest of my profile.

New LinkedIn Profile seems to offer a lot of the qualities that allow great social networks separate themselves from good ones. I wonder if professional exposure of users with those profiles will follow suit. Will freshness and ease of that clean user interface stimulate fresh, clean and professional bonds?

Do You Prefer an iPhone or an iBrick? Jailbreaking Censorship.

Apple takes the topic of jailbreaking seriously. It's not about those boring terms of use or EULA - more and more often users seem to prefer their phones to remain safe and sound, while the vendor ensures that nobody feels encouraged to take that fatal step.

Apple Support Forums are full of references to jailbreaking, it's legality and impact. I recently came across a very popular issue where I could not connect to iTunes and a recurrning pop-up kept asking to try again. A hint about modifying DHCP settings to DNS of 8.8.8.8 seems to eventually have solved the issues, while others suggested steps as drastic as jailbreaking. I noticed a recommendation about that and added (what I thought at the moment was) a neutralizing reply to that iPhone hacker. I just didn't feel right leaving obscure and extreme statements like that on publicly available resources. 

<Edited by host> what used to be a suggestion to
 jailbreak your iPad or iPhone

That forum post flat out said that the only way to resolve that issue is to jailbreak your phone. 1 or two days later, something interesting happened. That post didn't include any foul language or inappropriate imagery. Today, in place of that comment, we see a cryptic text that reads <Edited by Host> . 

In forum terms, that could possibly equate to administrative moderation. But I think it's more than just simple moderation. It's 'white glove' 21st century censorship. As negative as that description may sound, I think the host's behaviour belongs on that forum for the following 3 reasons:

1. There really are better ways to address a pop-up message - multiple forums, blog posts and comments suggest a wide variety of tips and tricks, and risk of negative impact of jailbreaking far outweighs the possibility of benefits
2. The more jailbroken devices users circulate, the harder it is to build reliable apps that span both fully-functional and tinkered-with smarthphones, and the harder it is to maintain a stable mobile environment for all of us. That is exactly what killed an innovative mobile operating system called Windows Mobile 5 and 6 (as recently as in 2007).  But does anybody even remember that system? Given the power of mobile devices 6 years ago (approx. 20 times slower), out of the box that Microsoft mobile system worked like a charm even on the worst cellular coverage on my Samsung BlackJack II. Once people started leaving unorganbized content behind on the hard drive, attempting to impose their onw way of file and folder structure, performance and usability took a nose dive
3. Do you prefer an iPhone or an iBrick? - as one of the Apple forum participans puts it in his/her comment, more often than not, jailbreaking leaves you with a broken device and no way back. During the days of Windows Mobile 6, users had a way of totally restoring an OS while getting full support from Microsoft and a wealth of online help articles. Apple won't help if you jailbreak your iDevice

Now we all know that Apple's position is solid on that topic. They don't mess around - they'll 'erase your thoughts' if you recommend jailbreaking. I wonder what others think about other aspects of jailbreaking: ethics, piracy, safety, etc.

More mobile apps that attempt to give young local athletes more exposure

ViewRecruit mobile app designed for athletes to better
promote their  field, academic and community achievements.

As I search for mobile apps focused on local sports, I stumbled upon a post on Google + related to Bailey Byrum whose success was caught by a smartphone app named ViewRecruit. Interesting mobile concept.

I 'splurged' $1.99 on the app and was pleasantly surprised with the content about Bailey. His own bio sounds positive, but there a couple of incomplete pieces of info. I wish I could do something for him as a passerby, or a random spectator. I thought that if you considered a platform like that a "LinkedIn for sport figures", things could be a lot more interactive and powerful.

To be honest, in the era of smartphones. when constant information sharing happens from the palm of your hand, it shouldn't be so hard to get noticed these days. Anybody, any school or institutions should be able to let the best local and teen sport heroes rise to the top by simply focusing on their game, education or community activity, while spending the least amount of time on anything else, like writing static bios or similar.

From time to time I heard about situations in life where without significant personal connections some teens couldn't break through to places or life situations where they could take their talents to next levels. Wouldn't it be nice if the community related to a local sport star or a talented teen had a chance to push someone who deserves to be noticed, where he or she belongs? Wouldn't that be a win-win-win  situation:  more power to spectators, more motivation and more fans for players, more focus for coaches. 

My techy mind tends to lean towards a mobile app which would allow all of those who attend games to share their observations about young people who deserve more from their hard work during practices, scrimmages and tough games. LIVESTRONG Sporting Park urges their fans to refuse to be just spectators, but that's a huge commercial conglomerate on MLS arena. I'm looking for a way to allow moms, dads, friends and local supporters with smartphones to chime in and stand behind local athletes year away from going pro. So far, most of the mobile apps for sports tend to be one-directional highways of info speeding at fans of several national or college teams. 

There's been a trend in local news agencies to expose residents of nearby towns to know about recent sporting events, but I think there's room and need for way much more. Let those who spend their evenings traveling to those small soccer games in remote nooks and crannies of their home states contribute quickly, easily and without getting overshouted by noise of social media channels like Facebook. Faster, easier and more productive way to share your enjoyment of watching, playing and/or coaching local sports and sporting events is what I think we are missing these days.

For a moment I thought that ViewRecruit was it, but I'm still looking for something different. If I find a mobile app for local sports, I'm going to stand on the tallest mountain and shout about it. If I don't find it soon, I'm going to find a way to build it.

The iTunes Store is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.

Clever mobile apps by CleverStep hidden behind iTunes issue

Quick error in Apple App Store got in a way of my search for a decent local sport mobile app, but I'm back on the right track again, with help of a friendly chat.

While digging up an ideal mobile app for local sports, I stumbled upon a mention about a modest yet brilliant project by a small startup called CleverStep. I rushed to App Store to find out more. To my surprise and pleasure at the same time, I already had one of their apps downloaded on one of my iPhones. The app is called Jamis Bikes and it is listed under Sports category. "It's getting warmer" - I thought to myself, before my mobile app detective train came to screeching halt, almost derailed.

'Almost' - because instead of being able to pull up details about that app, or downloading the other product of CleverStep's, I got slapped with an error message in iTunes when attempting to pull up my download/purchase history: "The iTunes Store is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." I gave it some time, tried again later: the same issue.

Apple communities had a couple of hints, but nothing rally eliminated that pop-up. On the other hand, it felt a little better knowing that I wasn't the only one facing the red exclamation icon. I gave the standard troubleshooting routine a try, at no avail. Number of other forum discussions list tricks like:

We could not complete your iTunes Store request.
The iTunes Store is temporarily unavailable.
Please try again later.

• iTunes updates and upgrades
• pointing fingers at specific versions of iTunes
• resetting cache in iTunes

Unfortunately, they didn't help either. Finally, someone just admitted that he contacted support and they "magically" took care of the issue. "Magical" - that was one of Steve Jobs's favorite adjectives while describing his systems. So I  trusted that suggestion; I tried that magical potion and it provided desired remedy rather quickly. He didn't say what he did, he just said I should be ok shortly. Yes, a chat with Apple Support rep, Leonard, put my local sport mobile app research train back in motion again. 

I've got 99 problems, but access to cool mobile apps ain't one of them!

Local sports mobile app. The quest to find the best one.

Am I the only one who would like to use a smartphone for local sport - not flat news feeds or busy websites?

To 'filter' activities and information we all use mobile apps, even if we don't actually realize we do... that white letter f on square blue background is an icon to your Facebook mobile app and filters your attention to a social networking interaction of your choice. Public reports show that average age of Facebook users exceeds teen and actually reaches into baby-boomer generation. In the area of mobility, other stats show that usage of smartphones and the universe of mobile apps that come with them is not limited to youngsters either. All generations get involved. 

News on the go might be for older adults, while professional social networking apps are for younger workforce and games may be dominated by the youngest of smartphone users. The one category that seems to span across all generations is sports. Let's not think of NFL, UEFA or Olympics when using the term "sports". Let me shift the attention to several places that we pass on our way to work or school. I'm referring to the softball field around the corner with aluminum benches for spectators, or to the soccer stadium behind the high school, or a set of the basketball courts surrounded by tall fences in the park. Those are living community organisms.

Local sports is where my mind gravitates. The best live games I've seen were the ones where my cousins passed the perfect assists and celebrated wins in a unified chant. The most memorable sporting events I got a chance to watch live were the ones where my brother scored a winning goal and cried his lungs out in joy. The most emotional sport events I've seen were probably the ones where the high school from a snotty town in a dark  part of the state actually found a way to win 71 to 70 with my local middle school's basketball warriors. 

Even though those tremendous memories required tons of work from coaches and players, they seem to fade away rather quickly these days or get overshadowed by the rush of our daily routines. Even if you just see a post on Facebook or Twitter about the last game, it quickly gets overshadowed with a random picture of Jane's new hair or Bob's new video attempt to make the Jackass squad. 

These days, coaches focus on preparation for games. Assistants lead organizational aspects of local spots. Players train, practice and learn to showcase endurance as well as new set skill sets  during each game. Fans hesitate and don't show up if there is chance of rain or get disappointed if games get cancelled unannounced. All of that seems a bit disjoint to me - aspects of local sports these days appear disconnected and segmented. I've seen social networks and mobile apps close bigger gaps before.

Social networks managed to connect counties and continents of people, even if they're on the go all the time. With so many great smartphones out there, I'm looking for something that  would allow me to see what's going on on that semi-grassy field behind the high school. And even if I can't make the game, I want to see who deserved to be man of the match and why. Perhaps we have a new Tiki Barber in the making here somewhere. Let the coach or his assistant easily manage the team and let the world know about where the next game is or isn't going to take place. I think they could use a mobile app to make things faster, easier and more productive for everyone. For that reason, I'm on a quest to find a "local sports mobile app" with social media hookups.

I always thought Google can find anything,  but at the moment I'm only finding stuff that's either just for scouts, or just for fans, or just for commercial leagues, or they're just specific to one team, for one season a year. I want it all in one slick mobile app for any smartphone I happen to use with my new cellular provider.

Sam Chan writes about his top 10 sports mobile apps and he picked a solid collection, but those apps don't cover local sports. ShoutEm promotes a brilliant mobile app for sporting purposes, but their app appears to be limited to only one team, for only one season a year. The screen on my handheld device is too small for apps used so rarely. Businessinsider makes a claim that they know what the best 10 mobile apps for sports are and they make good points, but those applications are either fantasy games or corporate sponsored news feeds. So far, nobody hit the spot yet.

I'll keep looking. I'll share as soon as I find a decent mobile app for non-professional sports that help coaches, players, fans and anybody else involved.

"Can't connect to iTunes Store" toothache

As a jolly owner of iPad 2 I proudly say I use that device for a lot of things. It saves paper, time and is a tremendous shortcut to world of technology online. Recent update to iOS6 was supposed to make it even faster, easier, more productive and not ask me for my Apple ID every time I want to install stuff. Hmmm, I mean that's great, but did anybody ask for that feature? Wouldn't we prefer to be able to display Flash sites or be able to use Silverlight web applications. They're still here to stay, longer than the latest release of Apple's tablet.

Nonetheless, changes related to Apple ID came about, some devices got the Passbook, some didn't. Sometimes it helps, sometimes that Passbook app gets in a way. I must admit I wasted a good bit of time trying to implement a recommendation from an Apple Forum just to later find out, as Dillon suggests in his reply, that Passbook is not available for my iPad (http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/65991/where-is-passbook-for-the-ipad).

So experts  recommend that I work with Passbook to resolve my inability to update apps and buy music from iTunes, while that app is just nowhere to be found on my device. Well, are they experts really? Someone else out there has a wild thought of messing with DHCP setting of my WiFi connection. For those who really desire to geek themselves out, please feel free to read up about DHCP on TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc781008(v=ws.10).aspx) - I would like to proceed to the bottom of solution to connectivity issues to iTunes.

Settings > Wi-Fi > (pick your network) > DHCP > Type 8.8.8.8 in DNS section.

As weird and unexplained it sounds, it worked. Why 8.8.8.8? What if 8 is my unlucky number? Why did the Quality Assurance team at Apple favored that silly DNS address over my actual DNS address given by my ISP (Internet Service Provider). I don't think we'll find out. The most important thing is that suggestions from a Level 0 newbie on Apple forum, Mrs Iris Terava solved a showstopper in an iPad 2 with iOS6 (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2474718?start=180&tstart=0).

Thank you Mrs Iris!

To me that's a massive oversight on Apple's end, or was it? What if we speculate a little bit for a moment ... what if iOS 6's pitfalls are just those subtle maneuvers of your dentist who is trying to improve the state of the inside of your mouth by poking at things and seeing how much pain you can actually take. If you moan, he'll say "sorry" and won't pull that move on you again or will increase the dosage of your pain killer. If you play a tough guy during the current visit and not even once signal discomfort, next time will he not numb your gums at all before he starts fixing a cavity? That's extreme and nasty - I know, but what if Apple is testing us to see how much abuse we are willing to take and still camp outside the fancy glass store in New York City to get that new iPhone 6 or 7 and how much more will we be willing to pay for lower and lower quality, less and less helpful apps with more and more imposed feature set/design as well as increased number of issues in public alpha releases.

Faster, easier and more productive with AirDisplay, wireless multi-monitor hookup

AirDisplay allows you to stretch your current monitor real estate.

"Whoopty dooo", one might say. "I already have a thick VGA cable along with a power cord and a USB cable hooked to the right of my laptop.

But imagine a situation where:

• you could skip those cables, and actually hold your external monitor in your hand
• you could stretch content from one computer onto another idle computer, a tablet or a smartphone
• you stretch your windows from your Mac onto your Windows machine physically independent piece of hardware
• control your PC or Mac from your tablet
• quickly test how your stuff looks like on a tablet, without going through provisioning processes through Apple or Android
• you easily deploy an additional monitor, on a fly, just tap an app on your tablet, no wires, no additional $$, just pure productivity

Enough about the imagining. That stuff is real. All you need is hookup to an app called AirDisplay. You have to pay for a decent version of that software, but if you give up your 2 frappuccinos tomorrow and the day after that, you'll love how well your money was spent. The time saved on NOT playing around with wires alone will make up for the minor expense.

It may not be as snappy as a wire connection, but if you just need that extra 10 inches to keep a spreadsheet open for lookup, or a mockup of something your designing on your main monitor, AirDisplay will not disapoint you.

Windows Server “8” Beta Pre-installation Information is out.

A pleasant surprise is hidden in quite insignificant system requirements. With only 512 MB of RAM, you could get your feet wet in an innovative server OS - Windows Server 8 Beta. 

As expected, actual requirements may vary based on your system configuration. In addition, based on the applications and features you choose to install, things may become a bit more demanding. Processor performance is also a key here - keep in mind that it does not always depend solely on clock speed but also on the number of cores and the size of the processor cache. Minimum for Windows Server 8 is 1.4 GHz 64bit processor - not too bad for something that would run your server environment. Moreover, only 32GB of disk space are required to get going, so let's give it a shot.

How Social Media Changes Protesting

Social Media has been a trending topic during the recent several years and keeps affecting new facets of human interactions. Even the phrase “trending topic” is mostly used on microblog-style sites, which fit under the umbrella of Social Media (http://www.whatthetrend.com). Popular stats claim that Social Media (SM) Internet interaction has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the Web and the leading SM portal, Facebook, has more subscribers than the entire population of United States. If Facebook was a country, it would have been the 3rd largest country in the world (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4gt62uAasE)


Social Media Definition
Essentially, social media incorporates the online technology and methods through which people can share content, personal opinions, swap different perspectives and insights into world issues and generally discuss the evolution of media in itself (Jantsch). Social media website content can come in many shapes and forms. One of them is text, which is often used to put across opinions or write web logs (also known as blog). Images and photos are another category; they can display anything from holiday photos to shots by professional photographers. Audio content is the third type of social media content. Podcasts are great example of that type of content. Video also grows in popularity. According to Dybward, Video sites allow anybody with animated graphics to share a visual story about any event, as well as informational, training or marketing material. Since video affects audiences’ senses of vision, hearing and deliver hard to describe motion, channels such as YouTube provide search capabilities used more frequently than Google. Recent “Occupy…” protests are great examples of that phenomenon.

Origin of “Occupy” protest
Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of demonstrations in New York City based in Zuccotti Park in the downtown financial district. The protests were initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters. As pointed out on OccupyWallStreet website, they are mainly protesting social and economic inequality, corporate greed, corporate power and influence over government (particularly from the financial services sector), and of lobbyists. The participants' slogan "We are the 99%" refers to income inequality in the United States between the top 1%, who control about 40% of the wealth, and the rest of the population. Even though that concept is only six weeks old, it has grown into a global movement, a subject of countless debates and titles of official definitions. Certain broadcasting networks attempted to convince their audiences that Occupy Wall Street began to lose momentum and significance while not delivering a concise message. Observers were quick to realize that it may have been only a faint attempt to diminish the impact of recent events and quickly turned their attention to computer and smartphone-based portals. Those Social Media portals allowed them to reach populations larger than United States with simple yet powerful statements, comments, images and videos.

Impact of Social Media on Power of Protests
As initial participants of the Occupy Wall street remained active and devoted to their cause, majority of conventional media concentrated on lack of focus and cohesiveness of protesters’ message. Occasional bystander or a casual observer of prime time news may have been convinced to believe that, while latest computer technology allowed crowds to prove strength of their anger, disapproval and importance of public demonstrations. That latest Internet technology knows as Social Media gave its protesting users an assurance that they will not be denied. Conventional media is no longer in control of what is communicated to audiences – people are. In 21st century, when even the third world areas without running water or permanent roofs over residents heads, communicate via smartphones, the reach of social media’s pull and push technology allows information to travel faster than earthquake shock waves (Parr).

What makes social media platforms really powerful is not only number of active users, but also ease of access and speed of searches. That unsolicited and unmoderated content makes first pages of Google search engine results rather quickly due to significant activity of unique users who tend to link to and from those popular streams of information. Recent protesters noticed that clout and used it to work around TV and print media channels’ reluctance to show objective images of their efforts.

Protests that took place decades ago formed around physical activities and took very long to spread given analog communication channels and limited forms of data and image transmission. 20th century protesters’ paper petitions or door-to-door campaigns may have been effective, but had very limited scope and were very inefficient. Even the bloodiest conflicts took months to spread in small geographical areas. For instance, when anti-communist protests that violently erupted in August of 1980 on Northern coast of Poland, it took until December of that year for residents of southern part of the country (only 300 miles away) to see short mentions of those events on public TV and in print (http://www.gdansk-life.com/poland/solidarity). In that reality, it took nine years for those activists to get what they postulated about.

Social media Internet technology made that form of communication and making global impact much easier these days. Some might argue that the Internet itself changed how world reacts to protests these days. However, only the benefits of social media, where global communities share equal and immediate access to impactful information and important status updates gave the vehicle of protest new wheels and stronger propulsion. Thanks to social media, recent “Occupy” protests remain a focal point of news not only on Wall Street, New York, NY, but globally and with much stronger presence than protesters of communist states in the eighties (Schweitzer).

Overview of Changes that Social Media brought to Protesting
Aside from obvious ease of access to independent information in form of enhanced pull technology, Social Media brings several other changes to protesters’ toolkits. SM also serves as a great broadcasting medium, and if information is widely and socially approved, it will find its way to the top of web search results and into conversations of millions of casual users of social networking sites. Individuals, local teams, remote groups, national communities or global movements are no longer dependent of conventional media broadcasters (Mills). No first page columns in newspapers, prime time TV or popular news anchors are required to allow for news to make headlines where relevant content is shared via social media.

15 Fluid Apps You Can Build for Your Business

Steven Walling has some really cool recommendations for people who want more out of their desktops. Especially, if most of the activities, work or research actually starts and end in web browsers.

What's really striking is simplicity of the software he writes about, Fluid Apps - all you really need to do is to know your URL, pick a name for your app, a location on your machine, and an icon. That's all it takes.

For more of his insights, check out 15 Fluid Apps You Can Build for Your Business on ReadWrite Enterprise blog.

XSDObjectGen - XSD to class - Sample Code Generator 1.4.2.1

Vinbhat posted a cool step-by-step list of instructions or dealing with XSD and classes using C# Visual Studio solution. HE listed all his hints in his WordPress blog "Exporting Data: Creating XML Files using C#".

Recently, I noticed that for something a bit more flexible than xsd.exe mentioned in Vinbhat's Step 5, you can always use XSDObjectGen from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=7075

I've used it many time to ome to a conclusion that it's super helpful if your XSD contains complex type that are defined by other XSD files. XSD.exe would choke on that - XSDObjectGen will interactively address that setup with you and automatically detect all complex types (related XSD') like that.

Mapping DataSet to XML and backwards

In case you were wondering how to get the best out of simplest XSD applications, Xun Ding has some hints for you on www.dotnetslackers.com. I just stumbled this article some time ago and it hit me how much easier it is to follow than anything else that comes up on top of Google search results on XSD (XML Schema definitions). to Check it out:

Mapping DataSet to XML and backwards

L+E+A+D - a definition of what it means to be a lead

L = Listen to your project team and stakeholders


E = Encourage the heart of the team members (motivate them through action and empowerment. Create the WOW environment)

A = Act (demonstrate your abilities, inspire the team, walk the talk, set an example)

D = Deliver (provide what you said you would provide and follow through on promises. Don't make promises you can't keep and make sure you meet your commitments)

7 Key Points to Consider When Dealing With Negative Posts on Facebook

This is how Intel handles negative posts on Facebook. 

Key points:

1. Realize that attacks can come from anywhere.
2. Plan for the worst. The key to responding effectively to negative publicity is having a response plan in place internally and a comments policy clearly posted to your Facebook page.
3. Watch for warning signs. Do use social media monitoring tools to help keep an eye on your brand's social presence.
4. Have a fire drill. Try setting up a dummy page on your internal network and practice responding to difficult questions and controversial posts.
5. Know when to escalate.
6. Your fans are your best defense. True fans can provide you with the most convincing, authentic response to an attack by arguing on your behalf.
7. Take it seriously. Respond to legitimate concerns as much as you can.

Read the full article here: http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2011/04/25/spotlight-on-business-to-business-inside-intels-facebook-attack-strategy