Marc's Vox blog

Well - it's once again been more than a month since I updated here. Too many blogs and not enough time I'm afraid.

Just to catch those of you reading me here on what's gone on recently, here's a quick list:

• I've gone completely Mac - picked up a new 24" iMac (my first desktop PC in 20+ years!) and MacBook (my second - the first one is now my daughter's). Leopard is running beautifully on both.
• I recently was sent one of the new Nokia N81 mutlimedia handsets. It's an 8GB phone/camera/media player. Nice design - a bit chunky - and great feature set. I'm waiting for the imminent firmware update before I invest too much time in setting this up and messing around with it. It's bit less expensive than the N95 (one of my favorite Nokia phones ever) but nowhere near as good a camera (2 MP vs. 5 MP in the N95).
• I continue to be really pleased with the iPhone. Despite it's limitations as a business tool, it's a pleasure to use and easy to carry everywhere thanks to its slim profile and great battery life.
• I continue to work with ThinkFree, Inc. and Curl, Inc. as a consultant and just added a third client to the roster. More on that news soon.
• Since my last post, I've attended the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco and Defrag in Denver. Both were excellent events, each in their own way. The high points at Web 2.0 were interviews with Steve Ballmer and John Doerr. The high points at Defrag were the opening keynote by David Weinberger and Nova Spivak's presentation on the semantic web.
• I recently purchased the new Amazon Kindle eBook reader. It's an astonishing device - flawed in some minor ways as all 1.0 releases are bound to be - but it changes the eBook experience in profound ways and I predict it will be a game-changer.

That's it for now. See you around the tubes. Look for me on Twitter (mochant), at blognation USA, and on my Platform Agnostic blog.

I've been muy busy with consulting work, writing projects and helping to get blognation USA up and running.

Apple-iphone

Man, the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field was cranked up to the max on Saturday. Despite my publicly stated intention not to succumb to the siren song of the iPhone, I drove over to the Apple Store in Albuquerque and picked one up on Saturday. I'm in San Jose today and, having been in two airports, one hotel lobby, and one hotel room with this device already, I can say the WiFi works great, the functionality is very, very well implemented, the quality is high, and the magnetic appeal is insane. I must have demoed this thing for 25 people yesterday in my travels (including one very geeky Southwest flight attendant who was completely entranced.

As the Treo is on its way back to my former employer, the iPhone joins the N95 in my gadget bag as one of two converged devices I'm currently carrying. The N95 supports tethering to my MacBook and Tablet PC (the iPhone doesn't) and has a better camera and of course the GPS. The iPhone has the allure of a completely new and typically brilliant Apple UI, great form factor, outstanding web browsing, and excellent iTunes integration.

So many blogs... so little time. I've recently started a new personal blog called Platform Agnostic which I'll be using to spout off on a variety of topics related to my brand new independent consulting practice and my next book.

I just ended my association with Foldera after one year of working with them on their web-based information manager and collaboration tool. Nice people and a very cool product concept but the role I was recruited to fill was still a long way off and there were so many cool projects vying for my attention. I'm now consulting with a couple of very cool companies and doing some freelance writing for a couple of very big tech companies and am enjoying the liberation from a single job.

As a result of this decision, the N95 is now my primary mobile device, partnered with N800 for light Net work. The Treo has been sent back to my former employer and I'll use the N93 as a backup and for when I need a really great camera. Although the N95 is higher-resolution, the optics on the N93 are still the best (3X optical zoom kids). If I do get another mobile device, it will probably be an iPhone because ti looks so cool to use but I cannot put my faith in a locked device with no removable SIM card, battery, or storage. Bad design IMO and a sign that Apple has some learning to do in this space.

Now that I'm a sole proprietor, I can claim the iPhone and AT&T account as an expense on my taxes which takes a lot fo the sting out of YACC (Yet Another Carrier Contract).

I received a Nokia N95 a couple of days ago, courtesy of the Nokia Blogger Relations program and I am simply amazed at everything this device can do. The camera, although higher resolution at 5 megapixels than the N93 is not quite as good optically. The N93 has a 3x optical zoom while the N95 relies solely on digital zoom which is simply inferior.

But the GPS is fantastic, the media playing features are fantastic, and it finally uses a standard 3.5mm jack instead of the pop-port thingie which means I can listen to music and podcasts with my Ultimate Ears super.fi pro 5 earbuds.

More info coming as I get more familiar with this device.

Day one of ETech has been generally great but I'm deeply saddened by the situation that caused Kathy Sierra to cancel her appearance because of death threats made against her by some deranged, out of control people who lack the ability to show a fundamental level of civility and restraint. Anyone who hangs their thoughts out on a blog understands that there's a certain level of boorish behavior to be expected. In many cases, this is the bravado of anonymity - most of these people would never write the the things they do if their real name and face was attached to their bile.

But this goes so far beyond that as to defy description. This is a woman who has tirelessly worked to add real value to the conversation. She's written an number of great books, given many incredibly educational and enjoyable presentations, and writes one of the smartest blogs ever.

Now she's afraid to leave her home and fears for her personal safety and is seriously considering ending her blog.

And we are all diminished by the acts of a few losers who are unable to control their basest impulses and who hide behind a thin veil of net anonymity. I hope you are all hunted down and dealt with as severely as possible under whatever laws provide the harshest penalties available.

I'm going to Gnomedex!

Gnomedexer

Demo 2007

Heading to the DEMO Conference in Palm Desert, CA tomorrow with my wife Sue. We'll hook up with Oliver Starr who I work with at Foldera and who is the author of the Mobilecrunch blog in LA for the drive out to the desert. I'm so looking forward to this - DEMO is the classiest and best-run conference I'm fortunate enough to attend every year and the line up for this year's event looks like there should be some great new products and services to write about. Check my ZDNet blog for coverage and here for some photos and maybe a video direct from my Nokia N93.

Batmobile and Terrapin Trailways

My buddy Warner posted on his blog this morning that one of the Batmobiles from the old TV series is up for auction next month. Yes, I am a huge Batman fan and, while I'd love to have one of these custom jobs, I have no idea where I'd put it. Maybe you get the Bat Cave too?

In any event, I have actually sat in one of the Batmobiles. One of the cars made for the show (I believe there were five made in total) is actually owned by a fellow here in NM who brings it to special events. One day, he brought it up to my friend Norm's shop and I caught this shot of the Batmobile in front of Terrapin Trailways, Norm's 1948 White school bus that he's lovingly converted into a rolling shrine to the Grateful Dead and on which we've gone to many, many shows over the years.

One of my favorite Terrapin memories is the year we rolled down the Strip in Las Vegas arriving for the annual three-day part at the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl with the band. We had "That's Amore" (Dean Martin version) cranking out the windows, lights ablaze, causing everyone on the Strip to stop and gawk (which ain't easy folks), and as we pulled up to a stop light there's a minivan next to us with Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Mickey Hart waving hi to us. Too cool for words.

24 widget in the Dashboard

I'm counting the hours until the season premier of 24 tomorrow night. I don't have a lot of time in my life for TV but this is a show I never miss. Truly riveting television.

I've been running this Dashboard widget for some time now...