Depending who you ask (my wife or me), this is either some genius marketing (that would be me), or some seriously demented black humor that assists in creating a restaurant in which no normal person should consume anything (do I really need to elaborate on who took that stance?)
Eating there might kill you (in reality, it is no worse than Burger King or any of its siblings), but you can watch this highly entertaining video at no risk at all. Putting the issue of cholesterol and heart attacks aside, you gotta admit that the food looks really good.
It took me a while to overcome my expectations and disappointment from Apple’s latest keynote on January 6th, 2009. With rumors of new Apple products, such as an iPhone Nano, a netbook, a new Mac Mini, and an official Apple Space Shuttle, my expectations from the keynote were higher then the American people’s expectations from Barak Obama.
Nevertheless, I decided to make the best out of the new releases and downloaded iWork 09 for my Macbook Air and the Keynote Remote Application for my iPhone 3G. As someone who loves to give presentations and lectures, creating effective presentations was always my goal. Over the last year, I started using Keynote from time to time, when the only reason for a non-intensive use was the lack of proper Hebrew support. Other than that, all of my English presentations were created with Keynote on my Mac. While giving the presentations, I used the Apple Remote with a program called Remote Buddy and of course my personal presentation skills. As I always said, gadgets and presentations will never replace a good presenter. On the other hand, a good presenter will always know how to use gadgets and presentations to enhance his own performance.
So I started playing with the Keynote application. The pairing process was very simple and intuitive over a wireless network. Such networks can be created with the new macs very easily, which makes it effective in case you do not have a wireless network around you. The process takes about 5 seconds to understand and implement.
After pairing the devices, there is a very limited number of options, which include the choice between a landscape or portrait view. Both of the views have their advantages:
•Landscape – The landscape view presents 2 slides. The slide on the left is the current slide shown on the board, while the slide on the right is the next action and not necessarily the next slide (e.g. if we have a white slide with one sentence that pops up when we click the mouse, the left slide will be an empty slide, while the right slide will include the sentence). The transition between the actions is done by sliding the right slide to the left with your finger. The changes occur on the screen immediately.
•Portrait – The portrait view includes one slide at a time. In order to perform a click, you just need to drag the slide to the left with your finger. If you are a notes person, Apple has been thinking about you. The portrait option includes your notes built in to your iPhone application.
Unlike the Remote Buddy application, the Keynote Remote does not include the option to program different kinds of behaviors and actions, and includes only the basics, such as: first slide, previous slide and settings view. There is no doubt that Apple’s general approach of keeping things simple is also the strategy behind this product, no matter how sophisticated the presentation is.
Personally, I find this application to be very intuitive and effective, although it might draw some attention from your audience while you are presenting cuz how many people make presentations with their iPhone or iPod touch?
Just to summarize, here is a list of pros and cons:
Pros – Easy to use, very intuitive, lets you see the slides without looking at the screen, includes 2 kind of views and makes you look cool and techie.
Cons – Wifi might be a bit slow sometimes, it supports only Keynote, which requires a mac. Oh, and you have to have an iPhone or iPod touch. This program will not help you if you are a BAD presenter, as a matter of fact, it will decrease your performance.
As we wait for any big news from CES, and grieve about the almost total lack of any news at all from Macworld, I thought I would tell you about a desktop application that is up there with the best I have ever used. It it not new, but its latest updates make it a real show-stopper. I am talking about the IM, Social Networking, and email aggregator for PC, Mac, or Linux; Digsby.
I have been using Digsby for months now and I have to say, it is almost flawless. Now, for me to say that about a program is a big deal, I am the kind of user that gets annoyed by the most trivial and ridiculous little quirks that 99% of people would never notice. Anyway, Digsby gives you a very clean and nice looking interface that includes the following services (sit down, it’s a long list):
LinkedIn: The interface could be better, but very useful, I am told
OK, enough lists. Bottom line is, Digsby pretty much offers you every possible tool used to communicate on the Web (I guess Skype is missing, but then again, with so many VOIP options in the above lists, why use Skype?).
In addition to all the available services, the actual experience is absolutely perfect. Tabbed conversations, awesome skins, nicknames, reply from within popup notifications, Facebook and Twitter updates that do not disturb your work, and more and more. I can go on and on with Digsby’s amazing features, but I am sure you get the point.
Just to summarize, ever since I installed the latest update, I have not opened up a browser more than twice, and that was to check the news. So, why is it not the perfect program? Well, if I have to name something, it does not include CNN updates, yet!
If you are reading this blog, chances are you know that CES is approaching. You also probably know that MacWorld is upon us, and that Steve Jobs does not have any sort of cancer, just a small curable hormonal imbalance.
Well, I am not a doctor and do not understand Jobs’ condition, and I have no friends at MacWorld, so I will be focusing on CES. I have an old friend that contacted me a few weeks back with a very interesting proposition. He said he is going to CES as a press analyst and he would be glad to represent Tech N Marketing by bringing us the latest and greatest from the show. Zvi is a blogger himself and works in the industry, so I am sure he will have only interesting news for us.
He will be sending us pictures, videos, and info from the show as soon as new products are announced. So, we will finally know more about Nova and other rumors that have been circulating. I told him to focus on Palm, Microsoft, and any other mobile news, along with anything else he deems interesting and blog worthy. If you have specific requests, please leave em in the comments, and I will ask him to focus on them as well.
Anyway, just to tell you a little bit about Zvi, read the following summary.
” I was born in Baltimore and grew up in Israel from 1986. In 1999, I returned to Baltimore and went to Towson University and graduated with a BS in business and finance. I was the credit manager for TESSCO technologies. TESSCO supplies wireless communications, as well as networking products and solutions to business professionals. For the past three and a half years I have been the senior underwriter for Atradius trade credit insurance. My analysis focuses on the consumer electronics, telecommunications, and semiconductor industries.
I work hand in hand with a handful of major manufacturers and distributors along with many other CE channels. My main focus is credit and finance and the viability of companies making payment on goods and services within the CE industry. I have extensive knowledge in product life cycles, inventory management and SKU information and of course what products are moving in the market.
OK, to sum things up, Zvi knows a lot about a lot, and I am sure he will send us some awesome updates. So check back here regularly during the show for frequent updates, you never know, we might be the first to report a huge announcement by one of the main industry players.
One of the main buzz words on the Web for at least 6 months (probably more like a year) has been Twitter. Seems like everyone who is anyone, is using it. So of course I had to check it out. Before I did that though, I talked it over with a few friends and asked a simple question; “why would I use Twitter to read status updates if I can do that via Facebook?” I really did not get the point. Status updates? That’s all?
The main answer I got to my question was that Twitter is a simpler and more user friendly site than Facebook. No applications, no ads, no other annoyances that we find all too often on Facebook. After using Twitter for a few weeks now and admittedly becoming an addict, I can tell you that the answer I got is an accurate one, but that is not what makes Twitter so attractive. That is not what is going to take Facebook users away from Facebook.
So, if not that, then what? Why is Twitter so useful? Why has it become such a popular social networking tool? I am sure there are a lot of different explanations for this phenomenon, but to me, there is one major difference between the people you interact with on Facebook and on Twitter. Let me explain. Facebook is based on a “friend” system. Generally, your Facebook friends are people you know personally. Yes, I know everyone has people on their list that they do not know, but Facebook is geared toward adding your real life friends to your list.
Twitter, on the other hand, enables you to follow someone you do not know, have never met, and probably will never meet. You can follow their tweets if their life interests you. The thing is though, that does not mean they are going to follow you back. They are not your “friend” just because you are following them. Let me give you a few examples. I read Digg every day at least 10 times a day (in fact, some days I have a Digg tab open all day). Twitter enables you to add the Digg category you choose and get updated on popular stories in real time without opening your Web browser. I do not know who the individual behind this Digg account is, nor do I care. They are not following me because they do not care about my life updates, but that does not mean I cannot follow them.
Another example is Shaq. Yes, I follow Shaq (at least I am not following Britney), and contrary to the way Facebook works, this, from what I gather, is the real Shaq. I follow him, but I do not see him following me any time in the near future. So to sum up the main reason I love Twitter so much, there is no approving mechanism, you can pretty much follow anyone you want, unless of course they make their profile private (which, by the way, I do not get why anyone would want to do).
I am pretty new to Twitter and am learning new things every day, you would be surprised how complex status updates could be. Learning about DMs (direct messages), retweets, desktop clients (using twhirl), and of course iPhone apps (I like TwitterFon).
I find myself using Twitter as a news source, since the news gets tweeted way before it is reported by the news websites. One more thing Twitter has helped me with, is getting over my Facebook addiction. Facebook? Na, so 2008!
After the huge success of certain apps that surprised us all (OK, I will say it, iFart), and the resulting quote on Apple.com from Tech N’ Marketing, I think I am going to share with you my thoughts on not only very useful apps like VLC Remote or Nimbuzz, but also on an app that is just pure entertainment. This app truly has no practical use whatsoever, in fact I challenge my readers to come up with an original way to use the following app.
iSteam: This app displays what looks like steam on your iPhone display and lets you draw shapes using the steam, like you would do on a car window. You can “steam up” the display by blowing into the mic on your iPhone’s or restarting the app on your iPod Touch. Yes, the app works on an iPod Touch even though it requires a mic to fully take advantage of the app’s functionality. Can you think of any scenario in which you could actually benefit from this app? I know I cannot.
Yesterday, while waiting for a train to my next job interview, I noticed that the monitor that is supposed to list the train times, had a Blue Screen of Death. Somehow, even though it was not my PC that was displaying the screen, I had that “warm” feeling that only Microsoft knows how to give you when their product fails. You know what I mean, the one that causes your heart to skip a few beats and your mind to say “oh no, not again”. Yea, I get that feeling too often, and I am not even running vista.
TechEBlog provided us with a video review of the Samsung T919 Behold (gotta love these silly names). I was fortunate enough to play with the device and was very impressed with it. The specs are close to unbeatable with a 3 inch haptic touch screen, 3.5G, built-in GPS, stereo Bluetooth, a whopping 5 mp camera, all in a very sleek 11.4 mm package.
The phone was very responsive, and Samsung included the ability to move around the home screen widgets as desired. The camera takes very impressive high quality photos and the phone got great reviews from pretty much everyone.
So what’s with my title? Well, this phone definitely has a lot of characteristics of a “futuristic” phone, but two huge factors prevented me from buying it, and essentially make it a totally outdated device I might have seen on the market 5 years ago (OK, maybe not 5, but 2 regular years is equivalent to 5 years in the mobile industry). Let’s start with the smaller of the two; lack of Wifi.
OK, it’s true, many devices do not have Wifi. I just feel that a phone with a 3 inch touch screen and built in GPS, should also have Wifi, a feature available a long time before phones had GPS and touch screens. However, I would have considered buying this device even with the lack of Wifi, if it was not for the next issue; a closed operating system.
In today’s day and age, with all the various app stores, would anyone in their right mind buy a cellular device thats functionality cannot be expanded using 3rd party software? No installing IM clients, no task manager apps, no social networking programs, and of course, most importantly, no games. I do not think Samsung was feeling well the day they thought up this concept. A phone with a 5mp camera, but no ability to download software? Now, that is a little weird.
As we wait for any big news from 
