Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Opera, the Forgotten Browser!

Wired Newshas an interview with the CEO of Opera Software in which they outline that Firefox has stollen most of his clothes. The article goes on to give the good news that "the show ain't over till the fat lady sings" And Opera intends to put on a grand performance this year that hopefully will see the browser take off in North America and Asia with its new version.

I am an Opera fan having first bought the browser for my Psion PDA some five years ago. I use Opera on my laptop and am at present a very happy user of the beta version which has added sound. When running Ad-Aware on my laptop I have very few hits compared to when running it on my childrens machine with IE. The same is also true for Spyware, Pop Ups etc.

My only gripe is with site owners who have configured themselves only for IE which means that I have to put switch to see what I want or go somewhere else!

Here is to a great year at the Opera!

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Lucy Kellaway: I refuse to hobnob for advantage

Lucy Kellaway wrote in yesterdays FT that she was not attending Davos this week despite that fact that her profile is high enough to be invited!

Davos is the winter get together in Switzerland where you can meet the great and the good and enjoy some skiing.

She tells the story of a successful businessman who at 60 has decided that networking was a waste of time. Nothing positive had happened from all the events he had attended in the past, what he liked was the ego boost of seeing and been seen and over time his ego no longer needed tickling by glad handing over warm white wine and canapes.

Kellerway goes on to say that the point of networking is to meet someone more important than you are. But if everything goes to a party to network, the whole exercise becomes self-defeating.

Whilst I agree that groups such as Ryze, Tribe, Ecademy and Spoke are only going to make money for the founders who are selling the snake oil of importance, power and connectivity. These are networks that seem to work on a numbers basis that grow buy getting as many as possible to join because the life span of members is limited.

However the point of Davos is that it is an invitation event that therefore controls the quality of those attending. This means that for those of us in business Davos is good, for a journalist on the FT yes its limited because she can get to see almost anyone. I will be going to Davos hopefully I well meat some more interesting people, it might not result in business quickly but it does help with introductions for people who don't have a brand name employer. My advice is just do not sell what you do be interesting and then others will ask your help opinion and realise that your time has an economic value.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

A Digital Pen: Mightier Than a Keyboard?

internet.comhas an a review of Logitech's io2 Digital Writing Pen which uses Anoto technology platform to enable digital capture of your handwriting. This is something that I have been using for the last nine months thanks to friends at Destiny Wireless. I think that this year we will see a major drive in Digital Pen uptake.

What I like about the technology is that rather than hiding behind my laptop at meetings I can use a Black & Red notebook to take notes in a meeting and then back at my desk these notes are digitised and transfered into either my electronic notebook or emailed to others. The impressive feature with my Nokia pen is the ability to change colours electronically when taking mind notes.

When others have seen the technology in action they have asked about it and are now looking at ways to use the pen within their business, it is just like my experiences with my PSION pda when they were first on the market. This is a technology that sells itself via demonstration rather than ROI calculations.

Monday, January 10, 2005

The Futures Bright

Having given up on T-Mobile after ten years "service" I find myself a member of the Orange network.

I now have a 3G handset and better coverage at home. The handset is in someways similar to my previous one in that I have stayed loyal to Sony Ericsson and so the text input and address book have some common features. In terms of the network based services well a lot has changed first off I have a customer service team who are seeking to help me make the most of my phone and the network. Thus this blog is being posted via my Orange phone as it the modem at the present because I cannot find a hotspot.

What does 3G mean at present well it does seem to give better voice coverage, just as I get to the tube station I "drop back" onto the 2G network and so those that I talk to can hear the difference. As for data on my phone well it is interesting getting Sky news video on my phone but I never was a big consummer of wallpaper, ringtones etc. and so as far as Orange are concerned I am not a big user of data.

So far the experience has been good, lets see what happens this week when I leave the UK and try and use my phone in Italy!