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Notes & Links

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On a Small Screen, Just the Salient Stuff

As it turns out, Mr. Jobs may well have understated the quality of the iPhone Web experience. Visiting Web sites that have been redesigned for the iPhone is often a quicker and more pleasing experience than it is on those increasingly cinema-style desktop displays, which routinely have 20-inch or larger screens.

It seems counterintuitive, but small really is beautiful.

Slipstream - On a Small Screen, Just the Salient Stuff/a>

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The Story of Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns.

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard

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Solving the mystery of why some hotels provide free internet access, while others hit you with major fees.

A decade ago we were complaining about the cost of calls from hotel-room phones. Why, we wondered, did cheap hotels give us free calls, but fancy, five-star joints ding us even for toll-free numbers? Who made more sense: The general manager who insisted that telephone calls were an integral part of the nightly rate, or the one who claimed he wouldn't think of charging a guest for a service he or she didn't use, so anyone who used a hotel's telephone system had to pay inflated, à la carte prices?

Mobile phones mooted that debate, and no business traveler even thinks about using a guest-room telephone today. But the deep, philosophical disagreements are back—over the price hotels may or may not charge to access high-speed internet and WiFi service.

Hotel Internet Access

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Reasons to love the iPhone over the Blackberry

Thinking about joining me in switching fruits from berry to apple? Here’s a quick look at what’s to love (and not-so-love) about being a new iPhone owner from the point of view of someone very used to the BlackBerry experience.

What You Should Know Before you Switch from BlackBerry to iPhone

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5 Myths About Sleep and Insomnia

We spend a third of our lives asleep, and it's clear that without it our brains don't function as well, yet little is known about exactly why we do it. Even less understood? Why we don't. As many as 35 million Americans experience chronic insomnia, and yet in 2006 only $20 million was spent on research (Compare that with the $123 million spent on advertising the prescription sleep aid Ambien.)

In the six years that author, professor and lifelong insomniac Gayle Greene spent researching and writing her book "Insomniac" (during which, ironically, she says she got the best sleep of her life), she learned almost all there is to know about sleep and the lack thereof. Here are five common myths about how we get our shut-eye and why ...

Newsweek.com

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Why you should avoid the iPhone

And they think this is limited to Apple? Or Apple's choice? With my current phone nothing is free - software, ringtones, and themes all cost money directly or via data charges. It doesn't support open standards either.

If you're a free software lover who's concerned about your privacy and the limitations of DRM, you don't want an iPhone. Amidst Apple's iPhone advertising blitz helped along by positively bubbly media coverage, the Free Software Foundation calls out the dark sides of the new iPhone.

Iphone 2.0: Why You're Better Off Avoiding the iPhone

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The Ars Technica iPhone 3G review

In this review, we take a long, hard look at the iPhone 3G, both as a consumer device and as an enterprise device. After all, part of the appeal of the new device is that a number of software improvements have finally made it enterprise-ready, or so claims Apple's marketing. From a business user's point of view, however, if you think that the iPhone is a drop-in BlackBerry replacement, think again.

Link.

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Desk rage!

I've never seen it and though I get frustrated at times the only person I have to get upset with is myself.

Anger in the workplace -- employees and employers who are grumpy, insulting, short-tempered or worse -- is shockingly common and likely growing as Americans cope with woes of rising costs, job uncertainty or overwhelming debt, experts say.

Desk rage spoils workplace

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HTC Shift review

HTC has been a veteran of smartphones but has only just recently ventured into handheld computers, and the Shift represents its first full-fledged attempt at an ultra-mobile PC. The system promises to take all of HTC's experience with handsets and translate it into a full-fledged Windows computer that happens to have the conveniences of a cellphone; but its real challenges may be both to compete with a new wave of notebooks as well as extra-capable cellphones like iPhone 3G.

Link.

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A Shared Office Is a Great Escape From Working at Home

One reason I write from home is that I work best at my own pace and on my own terms. I am typical of the stream of workers who have left traditional offices for home in the last decade, causing a jump in the number of single-person businesses, to 20.4 million in 2005 from 16.4 million in 2000, according to the most recent census. (Not to mention the rising number of people who work from home, especially as telecommuting grows in direct proportion with the increase in gas prices.)

NYTimes.com link.

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Evolution of the mobile communication ecosystem

Francesco Cara, a design strategist at Nokia with a psychology background, looks at the evolution of mobile communication ecosystems.
Link: Evolution of the mobile communication ecosystem | LIFT conference

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Checkpoint friendly laptop cases coming

For years at airport security checkpoints, passengers have heard the refrain, almost a dirge: “Laptops must be removed from their cases and placed on the belt.”

Get ready for a change. The Transportation Security Administration has given the go-ahead for passengers to use newly designed carry-on bags that will let them pass through security without having to take their laptops out for the X-ray inspection.

NYTimes.com link

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Focus on Results, Not Time

We often assume that the number of hours spent at work are an indication of one's effort, interest, and accomplishment. However, in reality, the greatest ideas and the execution of these ideas happen in spurts. The best ideas often do not require a lengthy conception, and the most productive days are seldom the longest. But still, managers instinctually measure employees with an eye on the clock. Working hours remain rigid, and morale suffers when the rules fail to support the ultimate goal: a productive creative workplace. What working conditions are ideal for maximum creativity and productivity?

Tip: Focus on Results, Not Time from Behance Magazine. Via Swissmiss.

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Pocket Wikipedia

Save yourself some data charges and take wikipedia with you on your PockerPC smartphone.

Pocket Wikipedia, hand-checked selection from Wikipedia which is about the size of a fifteen volume encyclopaedia (24,000 images and 14 million words)

The selection was made by Schools Wikipedia and is available for download here. This application it's a freeware software, works on PocketPC, Windows and Linux.

Pocket Wikipedia was created to work on PocketPC systems. After that was ported on Windows and Linux systems. Because the large size of the database file all OS versions of Pocket Wikipedia are distributed in one zip archive.

Knowledge on the go.. Via Lifehacker.

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