Broken – Inspiration

Often inspiration comes in the strangest forms. Look for it and you may never find it however when you least expect it the face of inspiration stares at you bluntly, begging for your attention. This week has been one of those times for me. I wanted to take a short moment to share my experience with you. Yesterday the sun was shining all was bright in our world. Not a chance anything could go wrong. The imaginary bell goes off, signaling nap time in the otherwise ‘busy’ household. Preparation begins to get our angels in bed. The normal routines are followed and signs of difficulty sprout from our three year old. He fights with every…

What if Windows Phone had launched prior to the iPhone

As pointless as it may seem to think this way I couldn’t help but swap the release dates of the iPhone and Windows Phone 7, wandering if the roles would have changed. Apple released the iPhone in June of 2007 showing the world how simple design could get things done. Fast forward to November of 2010 and look at Windows Phone 7. While the interface is nothing alike you have to admit there is a striking resemblance on how they both launched. Each company taking a risk in bringing something new and innovative into the mobile smartphone market. This brings us to the question at hand. Had Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7 back in June…

The “If” Clause

How many times have you heard or read somebody say this is great “if” you like this. What about “if” I were going to design this I would do the following? I call this the “If” clause. Everything created is to fulfill a purpose. This could be to improve the quality of life or to save the world from utter disaster, all things are invented with a specific purpose. Often we assume the purpose instead of taking a step back to see the creation for what it really is. Using an example I will explain how the “If” clause can prove to misjudge the purpose of an product. In our example we will use a…

rdio VS Zune Pass- What works for me

It is no secret that music is a large part of my life. Listening to music helps me step away from the corporate hustle and bustle that I deal with on a daily basis. The music industry has changed significantly over the last decade. We have shifted from digital a model where we purchase our digital media from services like that of Amazon MP3 or Apple’s wildly successful iTunes Store to a now popular subscription based services like rdio and Zune Pass. Both have their benefits, depending on your needs either might work well in your use case. Over the last 14 days I have pushed both services to their limits looking for the golden…

44 days

As many of us are counting down the days until the next iPad is released all I can think about is something much more dear to my heart than any slice of current technology. In 44 days, possibly less, I will be blessed with my third baby boy. Being a father changes everything about a man, all for the better. At first a feeling of hopelessness overcomes you as you realize your actions directly affect how your child will grow up. Things as small as having patience when a fast food clerk gets your order wrong can make all the difference in how your child learns how to interact with others. At first it may…

Your social voice, can actually be your voice

We hide behind our keyboards, smartphones, and socially connected devices shouting to the world like we have something important to say. We do this in hopes that people will listen and interactive with our thoughts and ideas. One big problem with this is people tend to take on a different personality when hiding behind text. For instance an identity online may be perceived as being a know it all, always making snide remarks when it reality the person is a very kind human being face to face. People tend to care a bit more when the media being presented is more personal. This is exactly what AudioBoo, a social service using voice recordings, plans to…

Holding on by a thread

Sometimes you hit a point in your life where the phrase “holding on by a thread” comes to mind. You grab the thread but the spool keeps spinning out of control, thrusting you further down the spiral of lost hope. Upon reaching the bottom you find yourself cold, without bearings. Moments pass by and you realize at your disposal is a huge bundle of thread. Taking a portion of the thread you create a makeshift jacket to warm yourself up. With the left over thread you create a rope to pull yourself out. Upon reaching the top you realize you had everything you needed to begin with. It is always a matter of using what…

Why not lets name something else HD – Introducing HD Voice

These days it seems that if you don’t have a product with the prefix HD or the suffix 3D you just aren’t in the “IN” crowd. Regardless of what you may think about the HD prefix it typically signifies quality, improved or enhanced in some way.Orange is announcing a solution that enhances your voice quality over their networks, they call this technology HD voice. What this means to the average Joe is that you will be able to understand your callee with little to no background noise, having a much clearer tone. Sounds great right, well there is a catch. In order to use this new technology you will need a new mobile phone that…

Life with Android – Day 2

Day 2 – Growing more accustomed to the Android operating system things are moving smoothly now. On day one we discussed how important email was to me, that given my love for the BlackBerry email solution, it was now time to investigate this on the Android platform. Armed with five email accounts, two Google ( Gmail ), one corporate exchange, and two IMAP business accounts, let us see if Android could be a viable replacement for my loved BlackBerry. Underneath first with Google’s own Gmail service, we look into the setup and experience. Setup, or lack thereof is one of the easiest I have experienced. This being due to the fact that upon entering your…