Archive for July, 2010



Sick of Your iPhone AT&T Plan? There’s a Legal Loophole for That

July 28th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Technology | No Comments »

Ahhh, the art of jailbreaking.

It was huge in the 80’s and 90’s with those little black cable TV boxes. You know the ones EVERYONE had in their house – illegally – that allowed people to get every cable channel imaginable without the cable provider knowing.

Well, jailbreaking is buzzing yet again. This time among Apple iPhone users. And, it has taken on a whole new meaning – literally.

iPhone owners will now be able to legally break electronic locks on their phones in order to download unauthorized software applications and – ready for this? – break access controls in order to switch wireless carriers.

The decision to allow the practice commonly known as “jailbreaking” is one of a handful of new exemptions announced this week by the Library of Congress. The exemptions are from a 1998 federal law that prohibits people from bypassing technical measures that companies put on their products to prevent unauthorized uses.

In addition to jailbreaking, other exemptions announced this week would:

- allow people to break technical protections on video games to investigate or correct security flaws.

- allow college professors, film students and documentary filmmakers to break copy-protection measures on DVDs so they can embed clips for educational purposes, criticism, commentary and noncommercial videos.

- allow computer owners to bypass the need for external security devices called dongles if the dongle no longer works and cannot be replaced.

Of course, these legal loopholes open up a whole can of worms about copyright infringement… but it sure is good news for those pirate techno-geeks who’ve been doing this – in secret- for years.

As for everyday iPhone users, you will have to be a technical wizard to know how to break those electronic locks. I bet, though, for more than a few people, being able to switch from AT&T to another wireless service provide is incentive enough to learn.

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Why Your Small Business Should Be on Facebook

July 20th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Business, Small Business | No Comments »

The land of status updates, Fan Pages and Farmville is even bigger than any of us ever imagined.

In some parts of the world, Facebook is more popular than search engines. That’s right, Facebook is bigger than Google!

That means, if you’ve ever had any doubt about what Facebook can do for your small business – it’s time to give the social network another look.

Here’s why.

According to the analysts at Hitwise, Facebook’s overall web traffic pulled ahead of Google’s for the first time in the U.S. in March of this year. They also found that people in the UK are visiting social networks more than they’re visiting search engines.

When compared to the Web as a whole, Google gets around 9.3% of all web traffic, while Facebook captures just over 7%. BUT, in the UK, Hitwise stats show that social networking sites accounted for .55% MORE traffic than search engines. An unprecedented finding.

Check out the graph below. Long term stats from Alexa show global page views for Facebook and Google are neck-and-neck.

fb vs google

What does this mean for you?

It means that not only are people using Facebook to socialize and network, but they’re using it to FIND CONTENT and LEARN about it.

Facebook’s “like” feature is a brilliant way to spread the word about businesses, products, and services. And, quite frankly, if no one “likes” you on Facebook – you’re out of the game.

Search engines are by no means on their way out. But, just like Facebook, they’re morphing into something different… something bigger. Both entities will probably look very different – again – in another five years. Until then, do yourself and your business a favor, and join the fray on Facebook. Set up a Fan Page and get yourself seen.

These stats speak volumes about what’s to come.

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What to Consider Before Developing a Mobile App

July 14th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Business, Small Business, Software Development | No Comments »

If your small business doesn’t have a mobile app yet… it’s time to start thinking about developing one.

In fact, some say the mobile app today is what the website was ten years ago –  one of those tools that’s almost a necessity for all businesses.

Of course, unlike a website, developing and designing an app is easier said than done. There are factors to consider. What kind of platform is involved? How will it be used? Who will use it? Is geo-location necessary?

These are all questions you – as a business owner – must take into account.

Thanks to Christina Warren’s article on designing mobile apps here are 5 things to consider before you begin the design process.

1. Mobile app or mobile Website?

Do you need a mobile application, a mobile website, or both? Before even starting the design process, you need to figure out what format or formats are best suited for your goals. Sometimes this can be really easy. For example, if you want to build a utility or game, you may be better served building a native application rather than worrying about how different mobile browsers will interpret your content.

Other times, the distinction isn’t as clear. For instance, at Mashable, we have both a mobile optimized website and applications for the iPhone and iPad. The mobile optimized site is available on a variety of devices, while the iPhone and iPad apps are designed to provide a more full experience to our users on those platforms. Because Mashable has a tech savvy readership, it makes sense for us to have our own standalone mobile app. However, depending on the app idea or business at hand, a mobile app may not be fitting.

Here are some questions to think about when deciding between an application and a mobile-optimized website:
Do you already have a full-featured website? If the answer is yes, how many of those features are you looking to integrate into the app? If your app is going to be largely a re-creation of your website, you may want to focus on creating a mobile site first.
Is this an app that can be used without an Internet connection? Some examples include note-taking or calculator apps. If so, a mobile application makes more sense.
Are you going to be integrating with other parts of the mobile operating system, like the dialer, the GPS and the mail client? If this is the case, consider building a native app.

2. Consider where the app will be used.

Once you’ve decided to make a native mobile app, you’ll want to consider where your application is most likely going to be used. This is important because where and how an application is used can directly impact how it can be designed.

For instance, if you have an application that is going to be used while walking around  a geo-location app or an app that takes advantage of a device’s GPS  making sure that core app functions are easy to see and access is very important.

Likewise, if your app is used to sell products or services, make sure that the price and the “buy” or “add to cart” buttons are large enough so that they can be easily accessed.

If you have designed an app that may be used while sitting on a train or in a stationary spot, make sure that text is readable and legible and that it is easy to move through content.

3. Be mindful of screen sizes.

Even on the same mobile platform, screen sizes and resolutions can vary based on device type. For instance, the screen size and resolution on the HTC Incredible is different than that on the HTC EVO 4G. Consequently, for an application to have a consistent look and feel across both devices and across a variety of other devices, user interface elements and graphics need to be scalable.

Likewise, the iPhone 4 sports a higher resolution screen than the displays on the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. However, because the big difference is in pixel density, the same amount of screen real estate is used. Basically, two pixels on the old iPhone displays equals one point on the new retina display. Josh Clark, author of the fantastic new book Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps, has written a must-read post about designing for the iPhone 4’s retina display.

The Android Developers site has a great guide for supporting multiple screens on Android and a look at how to best achieve screen independence so that your apps will run and display properly on a number of different display types.

The Android Developers site also has tips for how to test your app in different resolutions with an emulator.

4. Don’t stray from existing user interface conventions.

On desktop computers, there are certain user interface elements that make a Windows app a Windows app or a Mac OS X app a Mac app. There are user interface conventions tailored for mobile apps as well. While you don’t have to follow these guidelines 100% of the time, sticking with consistent methods of displaying data and interacting with content will make your app easier to pick up by end-users. Following these conventions will also ensure that your app is consistent with the other applications already on a mobile device.

Each major mobile platform has documented user interface guidelines. Apple, for example, has a very extensive overview of iPhone Human Interface Guidelines, detailing and offering examples of standard UI conventions that should be considered when building an iPhone app.

While not nearly as complete, the Android UI team has its own User Interface Guidelines, complete with overviews of icon, widget, menu, and activity and task design guidelines.

Likewise, RIM has a complete section on its site for UI Guidelines for BlackBerry devices, including sections on touch screen BlackBerry devices, the different theming systems available for BlackBerry, and how to handle the trackball or touchpad.

5. Design for touch.

In almost all cases, mobile apps are going to be used while in someone’s hand. Therefore, designing your mobile app around touch and ergonomics is very important.

Think about how you hold your phone in your hand. Now, think about where you thumb sits. That’s why many applications have main menus and selectors at the bottom of the screen and content near the top of the screen. Apps with that type of layout are designed for touch, and yours should be too.

Beyond button layout, think about how you want to indicate touch feedback  physically or visually. While the BlackBerry Storm tried the whole clickable screen thing, the truth is, haptic feedback (such as vibrations), while great for games or for alerts, doesn’t usually work very well for touch-based devices like mobile phones.

Instead, use visual cues to show that an item is either touchable or has been touched. For instance, think about how the various keys on the iPhone keyboard grow in size when you touch them. That increase in size is feedback.

Lastly, designing your apps so that they take advantage of gestures, like swiping forward and back, pinching to zoom and pulling-down to refresh, can add a lot of usability to your applications without taking up tons of space for a designated button.

Sure, when it comes to developing mobile applications – anything goes.

But with a little careful planning and ingenuity your next app won’t only be “new”…. it’ll be killer!

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I Love Google Chrome and Here’s Why

July 7th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Technology | No Comments »

Google Chrome.

I use it … and so should the rest of the Internet-using world.

Why, you ask?

Well, speed for one. The browser is super fast. No dinking around waiting for a page to load, like you would on other browsers (ah hem, Internet Explorer).

Second, I like Chrome’s architecture. It’s different.  For instance, when you close a tab, you are virtually terminating a process. This is good because if you corrupt the tab’s memspace then you will crash only that particular process. The browser and all other tabs should continue working just fine like nothing ever has happened.

Third, I love Chrome’s privacy feature. You can literally browse incognito. Just switch into incognito mode and nothing – I mean nothing – gets logged.

Fourth, with Chrome you can get anywhere on the Web with one box. The address bar that sits at the top of the normal Google Chrome window simplifies your Internet experience by doubling as a search box. Simply setup the browser to default to your favorite search engine and viola – you’re in business.

Fifth – and lastly – I think Chrome’s extensions are terrific. There are a number of popular extensions designed to make your Internet experience more interesting.  Ultimate Chrome Flag is one, for example, that displays a country or region name, Geo, Google PageRank, Alexa Rank and WOT info for the websites you’re visiting. WOT and the Web2PDFConverter are also pretty cool. For Internet dawdlers, there two extensions worth noting: StayFocused and Chrome Nanny. Both work like any other digital nanny in that they will block sites you DON’T want to visit – or sites you inadvertently spend too much time on (ah hem, Facebook). All of these extensions are FREE and worth every second it takes to download and install them.

Sure, I’ll be honest. Chrome isn’t the end-all-be-all of Internet browsers. It has its flaws. BUT it’s still in its BETA phase. It has room to grow.

I guess it all boils down to preference. And today, I prefer to tell you that if you haven’t started using Google Chrome yet – at least check it out. Once you go Chrome, you probably won’t go back.

Did I mention that Chrome can run Web pages and applications on a Mac too?

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