David Rinnan on posterous

Thoughts, views and comments on the online world, marketing & business 
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November 23, 2009

How I saved 100USD on mobile.me #iphone

pretty simple. I didn't use it. 

Photos
Most people already have a way to store and share photos online, such as http://flickr.com, http://picasa.com or as in my case http://drthings.posterous.com (I use picasa as well but in a different way).

Files
With http://dropbox.com and other similar services it is very easy to get a quality space in the cloud for your files at no cost at all. The iphone app does however still lack some relevant features to be as good as the desktop/web service offering. 

Mail, Contacts and Calendar
One think I was lacking from the start was push emails and a good connection to google calendar and contacts. 
Which you can solve this way 
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252
Via the exchange protocol that google have implemented you can set your iphone, with one single setting, to get push email contacts and calendar from google. 

CalDav for synching
My next problem was a webdav account. Omnifocus (todo / gtd app for the mac) need a CalDav account or mobile.me from apple to synchronize the database into the cloud so that your different workstations or the iphone can use the same data and keep everything in sync. Eventually I found a local Swedish provider that grant access to CalDav, and some other stuff, for free without strings or ads attached! 
http://www.datahotellet.com

I think it is safe to say that most of the above will perform as good or in many case better than mobile.me without having to pay a single cent. 

The only thing to solve now is to do the same with contacts and calendar on the macbook as on the iphone. Connect straight to google, replacing the local stuff and to do this without any cost :) 

 

   
Click here to download:
How_I_saved_100USD_on_mobile.m.zip (12 KB)

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November 20, 2009

Think forward not backward

The book I am listening to at the moment states that a human being think 60 000 thoughts every day. And more or less the same 60 000 thoughts the day after, and day after... Too many are locked in thinking about the past or worrying about the same things every day.

Stop thinking about the past and allow your thoughts to become the architect of your future

This is the book. I recently started so I cannot say if it is good or bad
http://www.amazon.com/Monk-Who-Sold-His-Ferrari/dp/0062515675

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November 17, 2009

strange performance test between mac and windows


I mainly use my mac book pro which works fine most of the time. As I was watching a 10 minute movie on vimeo I was disappointed of how much if affected the computer. I mainly use firefox and know it has a tendency to consume a lot of memory and processor and crash pretty often. 

So I tried the chrome developer version since the real stuff is not released for the mac yet. Same result. Disappointing amount of processor used for a non HD movie in the browser. 

I fired up VMware fusion and went into Windows XP 64 bit where I tried both IE 7 and Chrome. Same Movie. 

Chrome on the pc via VMWare on the mac took less processor but still not happy with performance. 

IE7 on the PC via VMWare on the mac took considerably less processor than running Firefox or Chrome(dev) on natively on the mac. 

That is straaange and very disappointing. Kudos to VMWare though and Microsoft (that is the first time in a long time I say that) 

 

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November 12, 2009

Why you need to subscribe to your name

A lot of people get ripped of on on sites like ebay, craigslist or blocket here in Sweden. Simple and effective. Pay a small amount of the total cost in advance to lock that nice deal you have just found... and the criminals get smarter all the time as always. 

Cars, computers, phones, houses for rent etc etc. 

It is now very common for them to put up ads in other peoples name to provide the ads with an aura of security. And they put a lot of research to make sure they pick a good name. Like the other day when a member of my family looked for a cottage over new years eve. The ad was placed in the name of a person who lived close to where the cottage in question and everything seemed to match. After a quick check it was noticed that the phone number went to an anonymous subscription and in the internet yellow pages the real person had another public phone number. 

A quick call made it clear that the person listed in the ad didn't rent out his cottage. How many people paid before the ad was pulled? I would probably have fallen for the trick since I have rented skiing cottages many times that exact way. 

A friend of mine once lost a large chuck of money on a pre payment on a car. that sucks. It is easy to get carried away. But nowadays you also need to check that someone isn't impersonating you, for many different reasons. So make sure you have a google alert on your own name. Might however only be practical if you have an uncommon name :) It does seem however, that uncommon names are what the criminals use so that you are able to check out the name online and feel secure. 

Do it! And remember that a deal that is too good to be true often turn out to be too good to be true :)



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November 9, 2009

Posterous like you've never seen it before

A recent upgrade to posterous made it possible to change styles, color and logo etc. Pick from existing styles or create your own with CSS. Javascript is however not supported but will probably be supported to premium members (I guess paid member ship will be rolled out soon?).
My question is if this premium membership already exists...

If you look at this page you will se posterous in full glory with ads and everything
http://holykaw.alltop.com/

As you can see towards the bottom of the screen (click the screen shot in this post to view full size) the "admin" panel from posterous is in there so I guess it is not simply a case of a styled RSS feed from posterous.

Thoughts?

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October 26, 2009

New Google Social Search @ Labs

You have to go to google labs to activate it. http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html

Which I of course tried to do but I couldnt get it to work probably because I am outside of US.

Very nice feature and I look forward to when this becomes available for everybody. It is yet another step in googles "hidden" agenda to step by step become the biggest social network.


David Rinnan
http://www.google.com/profiles/david.rinnan

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October 26, 2009

Internet Image Montage omg

This one is pretty cool. The rumored demo does not seem to work.
If you want to read the science paper and news about steer your browser to google and search for internet image montage.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6496886&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1


David Rinnan
http://www.google.com/profiles/david.rinnan

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October 24, 2009

Install Windows 7 from USB Stick

This guide works fine if you have vista or windows 7 installed on a computer. 

Then you will be able to configure a USB stick of at least 4 gig to function as a bootable installation file for windows 7 without having to download any tools or application. You just need to use standard features in Windows Vista or Windows 7 in combination with a boot app on the windows 7 source. 

I tried this and it works great and it is a much quicker install compared to DVD. 

Check out the guide here 

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October 19, 2009

apple: with the nice profit you just made, can you please

1. Fix your computer casing. Alu weigh more than plastic I guess. Which is why you have to make such thin sheets of alu that I can feel it flex by just pushing the finger on it. Take the lid of the screen for instance. You can make a dent in that far easier than plastic. A computer of this cost must be much tougher. Pro means that people work with it, travel around the world with it, ok?

2. When you go after the cool stuff it is easy to miss the really simple and standard expectations. Whether MMS, ok quality camera, FM radio or just the ability to continue to listen to the music while sending a text message. There are soooo many waiting to buy an iphone.
(for a product that, with the introduction of OS3.0 actually can send MMS. There are 2 400 000 posts on how to do it. Only sending files over lan win over that)

3. Make an iphone that can survive a drop on the floor. Too many that I know have smashed their phone after relatively light drops.

4. Even though it is easy to say that Vista wasn't the best operating system ever made (pun intended) it still made a number of good features available on the market. It doesn't hurt to try and steel some of those features, so long as it makes the OS better. The old story goes that a mac is so easy to use and so intuitive. Well it isn't :) And there are many things that are far more awkward on a mac than a PC. I think it is time to take the next step.

(got a little better with the latest version of osx)

5. Given that one of the major alternatives to Windows is free (linux) and that it, with versions like ubuntu, comes like a full blown commercial OS out of the box (a free box without wrapping, CDs etc). And that you are able to, if you want/need, tweak it to death. It strangely enough installs on most common PC hardware (yes that is right, the same hardware apple are using..). So rather than having to steel your software or otherwise go against your EULA and install a hackintosh you could make your OS available for all hardware as everybody else do (and in the case of your main competitor - are probably forced to do). Fixing drivers is up to the perefiral manufacturers or the community, as it has always been. It is not your problem so feel free to take this next step to conquer the OS world (step 4 required as well though).

Let's begin there and take the rest at a later stage!

Thanks


David Rinnan
http://www.google.com/profiles/david.rinnan

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October 13, 2009

37 signals - Hate / Love

I wrote a Google Sidewiki entry and wanted to share it with you.

David Rinnan
David Rinnan wrote:
Hate / Love - When I use 37 signals products I always have an urge for something more. Their functionality is often limiting and not very cheap either. Still I use them almost everyday! :)

I often get the feeling that I have to invent a way of working within the limits of the software rather than being provided with a process that I either like or dont. A great way of reaching a mass market. I love the simplicity of highrise but I hate the limitations. I bet you get what I mean :D

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