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3 Apps For Mobile Blogging With S60

Jorge Ledesma — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:16:50 +0000

It seems that mobile blogging is more popular than ever these days and I’m glad we have quite a few choices. Among the multitude of weblog platforms that exist out there, it seems like Wordpress and Google’s Blogger are the favorites among Nokia and Symbian bloggers and boy are we glad. First, lets mention some of the players in this arena.

Wavelog, is an older Symbian client that supports Blogger, Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, YouTube, and Picassa which is very nice but they only seem to support the N95 officially, although its been reported that it works on a couple of other Nseries devices. I personally tried it on my Nokia E71 and it was a no go, I can’t recommend at all. The layout is kind off weird and not intuitive either. I’m actually surprised that it has not been updated to a more friendly interface. This application has a great potential once they resolve some of their interface handicaps and supports the ESeries. On a positive note, if you’re willing to plow your way through, it works quite well. I’m hoping that Wavelog receives a huge makeover and joins the competition.

Shozu, is a great application that supports a multitude of platforms, you name it, they probably support it. To mention a few, they support Wordpress, Blogger, Picassa, Ovi, Facebook, Twitter, Live Journal, MoBlog, Typepad, Vox, Flickr, etc. etc. Again, a great asset to the arsenal of any true mobile warrior out there. Congrats to Shozu on a great application. I’ve confirmed on a recent Twitter exchange I had with them that they will be adding a ‘draft’ option to send your post later which is a greatly needed option. Remember Shozu is a great “feeder” of mobile data to all your services, but its not bi-directional, meaning, once you send something to ie. Blogger, you can’t redownload it to your phone, edit it, and then resend it. So keep that in mind. I use it a lot to feed pictures/videos to Ovi, Flickr, Picassa in 1-Click.

WordMobi, is an application written in Python for S60 by Marcelo Barros that supports Wordpress. This application is truly a delight to use, its got a great user interface, its highly intuitive, and it works flawlessly. Its got a two part install but once you get over that it really is smooth sailing with this application, Marcelo has just release a new version, v.7 that supports multiple blogs at once which is an amazing option. So now you can literally support all your Wordpress blog via WordMobi

Prices

Wavelog $16
Shozu $0
WordMobi $0

Hmm, choices are so simple sometimes, so happy blogging! My personal favorite is WordMobi to blog and Shozu to feed media to my various site effortlessly.

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Nokia S60 Phone + Vitalist + Twitter = The Gtd Triumvirate

Jorge Ledesma — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:10:55 +0000

The term triumvirate (from Latin, “of three men”) is commonly used to describe a political regime dominated by three powerful individuals as cited in Wikipedia; in this case, the triumvirate is composed of our beloved Nokia S60 phone, Vitalist, and Twitter.

Doing the Gtd should be silly simple and most importantly 100% reliable because if our systems are not reliable they will inevitably fail us in their purpose; what’s their purpose, making our lives easier. We have all experienced this type of situation at some time in our work and personal lives; we’re urgently looking for those “important” documents that are mission critical to the success of some project and we know we had the information somewhere but we you just can’t seem to pinpoint the exact location of the papers (Gtd Filing System).

So what happens next, you fail at that moment to comply with your boss’s request, thus looking unorganized, inefficient, and not really putting the forth effort that you need. If we extrapolate further, we can make an argument that since we are human beings and its in our nature to only remember the negative things that happen to people, then come review time, you may suffer the inevitable consequence of leaving a sour taste in your boss’s mind for all those moments you could have delivered but didn’t and maybe getting passed over on a position or not getting the expected bonus, etc. Getting things done is a real and we as human beings get judged on everyday on our results and not our efforts, nobody remembers who lost the 1972 Super Bowl but we all remember the Dolphins. So how can we get a rock solid mobile system? Easy, setup your own Gtd Triumvirate.

Vitalist

Vitalist is a Web 2.0 to-do list manager that is based on tenets of ‘Getting Things Done’. Vitalist has everything you want and no excesses, its interface is simply a joy to use, its maneuverability is unparalleled, and it simply just works. Vitalist is easy to setup and free to use but they do have several plans to choose from for those who require more power. I, myself, have a premium account which gives me access to unlimited categories, unlimited projects, unlimited contacts, and basically everything else.

Top Features

It has a mobile site that is easily accessible through your favorite mobile browser ie. Web from Nokia S60, Opera Mini, and Skyfire
It has iCal support which makes it a breeze to import that calendar as ‘read-only’ into guess what, yes Google Calendar and of course other calendars that have ical integration.
They have never been down or had any weird server issues ever as long as I’ve been using the service.
They have a Twitter integration, guys and this rocks, I’ll explain later.
You can receive reminders for your next actions via email and sms as well as a daily digest.
iGoogle gadget supports, very nice feature

As you can see this application is very capable of handling even the most demanding Gtders.

Twitter

Twitter, the phenomenal micro-blogging client that has revolutionized the world from all things casual to even major news coverage is a vital part of this Gtd Triumvirate. The Twitter integration from Vitalist is an amazing and ground breaking option that not only augments Vitalist’s usability but also give us an important way of feeding tasks (next actions) into our Vitalist Inbox.

Since Twitter has a plethora of internet and mobile clients, this integration creates a strong synergistic relationship with Vitalist. How does the Twitter option work? Simple, you simply input your Twitter id in the settings of Vitalist and that’s it, you can start direct messages to “d vitalist” and all your tweets will magically appear in your Vitalist Inbox, isn’t that cool.

Some notable Twitter desktop clients are Twhirl, Tweetdeck, and Twibble, the latter having an amazing Java mobile client as well, that is fully compatible with the S60 hardware. There is also Twim, another Java MIDP 2.0 application, from software developer Tommi Laukkanen that is also very solid in its integration and usability. In the end your personal preferences will guide you as to which client suits your needs, but it’s great to know that we have tons of options when it comes to this Twitter integration with Vitalist. Another major player joining the Twitter mobile platform is the much anticipated release of MobileWay’s Gravity, a native twitter s60 mobile client that will surely bring tons of functionality.

Nokia Web Browser

Through our S60 browser, we can easily access Vitalist Mobile making it really convenient to check our next actions, someday maybe, and projects and as an added bonus you can also use Google Calendar Mobile to access your Google Calendar on the go, create a bookmark call it “Calendar” and map it to one of your soft keys and voila you have 1-click access to your calendar which works via edge, 3G, and wifi and boom you’re always connected.

Bonus Power Gtd Setup

If you want to map your different “Google Calendar” calendars to your native s60 calendar, you can use a GooSync premium account along with SBSH Calendar (previously called Papyrus) to color code your calendar; to be continued… . . .

Final Thoughts

So go happy Gtding and don’t forget we’re always getting things done in some way, shape, or form. It’s important to have a nicely integrated system that will not fail us when we need it.

For more Gtd tips, you can also follow me on Twitter: NokiaGtd

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Getting Things Done with your Nokia S60 Phone

Jorge Ledesma — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:44:43 +0000

Getting Things Done (Gtd) is the brainchild of David Allen. If you’ve been around the World Wide Web anytime within the last 6 years then you’ve probably heard that term thrown around. In the coming days, I’ll be sharing with you how I use Gtd using my Nokia S60 phone.

Intro to GTD

The ideas and concepts espoused by Gtd have revolutionized the corporate world, the mobile technological savvy and even soccer moms, along with inspiring a plethora of web and mobile applications. What’s the best way to have a Gtd system integrated with our beloved smartphones? The answer is, anyway you want, and thanks to the reliability and stability of the S60 operating system all things are possible.

The main tenets of Gtd

Collecting or capturing anything that has your attention personal or work.
Defining actionable things into outcomes and specific next actions, in other words, processing on the front end and not in the back end when things blow up.
Organizing reminders and information in the most efficient way in appropriate place holders ie. categories based on how and when you need to access them and folks this is really the key to the whole process

Key Terms to know

Next Actions – anything you have to do personal or work. For example, Pickup dry cleaning at Joe’s Cleaners, this would be placed in a category called @errands, the “@” sign symbolizes the word action meaning ‘action errands’
Projects – any outcome you want to complete that will literally take more than two action steps.

David Allen has written extensively about Project Management in all his books and in an email exchange I had with him about 4 years ago he clarified a lot of my questions. D.A. basically said “how are you going to remember all the things you want to do if you can’t keep accurate track of them.” Projects are like stake holders in the ground, they are just meant to serve as place holders of a multi-action outcome and as you know we all have a bunch of those.

Let us say you have a project called ‘Car Tune Up’ unless you walk outside with a wrench in hand and are ready to get your hands greasy then ‘Car Tune Up’ is a multi-action outcome. 1st Next Action – Call the garage to see if they can take the car, this would go in your @phone or @calls category but wait, do we have the phone number to the garage hmm, I don’t, so I guess I need to get the phone number of the garage first (this would be a BFO as David Allen says a “blind flash of obvious). Upon further review, you remember that Mary your neighbor recommended this garage to you last week as you both watered the front lawn, so I guess you have to ask Mary for the phone number, so this next action would be placed in your @home or @calls or @agenda (this category is great because you can populate it with the names of people you come across with all the time and you have actions that involve them in some way, shape, or form).

And the thought process continues and eventually you think about the several actions that need to happen to get this project off and rolling but remember if “Life” happens to come at you at 100 mph and you have to divert your focus to other things, its ok, because you already have defined on the front end what needs to be done to continue your projects when your ready to go back to them and that’s the beauty of Gtd, having your trusty and reliable system that without fail you can always refer back to and get back on the wagon.

Nokia Implementation

Well enough said, if you have not read Getting Things Done, then I encourage you to read it. it’s a great book. Now let’s move onto the actual operation of this system. What software or applications are you going to need to setup a Gtd system on the Nokia S60 platform? Simple, any Nokia S60. I use the Nokia E71 just because I like firing off next actions at the speed of light on a qwerty keyboard but really any Nokia will suffice. Eventually you get so good at this that it becomes intuitive and really the tool just becomes an extension of yourself, so even a non-qwerty device like any Nseries phone will do just fine as well.

Applications I’ve Used for a Gtd system

Projekt
The regular PIM functions of any Nokia in combination with Ovi on the web
SBSH Papyrus
Handy Calendar
Google Calendar in combination with GooSync
Twibble (I love Twitter)

Applications I hope to use soon

Gravity, a native S60 twittering client that’s about to be released this month that supports ‘direct messaging’

Some web based systems that work great on the mobile side are Vitalist and Remember the Milk. Again the choices are endless and only limited by your imagination and your software but as you can see there are many shoes in this store and one is going to fit your style.

Current Setup

In the coming days I’ll be sharing with you my current setup which uses the following applications:

SBSH Papyrus
GooSync
Google Calendar
Google Sync
SWIM and Ovi Sync

I look forward to contributing and enlightening your productivity with getting things done.