[: neon :] NewEnglandOnlineNetwork

This post was posted from my iPhone?

Yes, this post is coming directly, in real time, from my new iPhone - but this Typepad program they provide for free in order to be able to do this just closed on me without saving the work at least as a draft.

I hate it when that happens.

UPDATE: I'm on my Mac now and hasten to add that from the moment I pushed the publish button on my iPhone to the moment this post officially appeared on this page was less than five seconds - and the original is actually sitting inside my Typepad list of posts.

Pretty amazing ****.

Memo to Business & Personal Blackberry Owners: Get thee an iPhone with MobileMe

REVIEW

Cannot believe how functional and cool MobileMe is for our new iPhones.

In the world of the PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) we've bought over the past ten years, from having-no-other-choice-back-then-but-endure three Palms, then one horrific nightmare of a Sony version of the Palm and then one superb HP PDA, we turned to the Blackberry and have been relatively unhappy with it, like 55% ok, 45% not ok.

We're now thrilled and amazed at the ease of the Apple iPhone 2's real-time synchronization through MobileMe - - - and the app certainly kicks all current Blackberries (have not yet tried the Bold) out of contention for business enterprise users.

Imagine this, my friends. You suddenly have to enter an appointment or a task or remember to do something at a date and time certain. No matter what computer you're on at the moment, you log on to your MobileMe web-based site, enter your new data and bam, it automatically adds it to your iPhone in real time - or vice versa, which also means that if you're out in the field and have only your iPhone, you enter your new data on that device and bam, it's automatically transferred to your desktop application, again, in real time.

No more docking and synching, no more trying to figure out which direction to choose for your update (the old Palm) or trying to remember whether you synched or when.

Boom, bam, it's all done for you through and thanks to Apple's MobileMe.

On the darker side, should your Blackberry need repair, for example, and last I checked a couple of months ago, Research in Motion (the Blackberry mfr) has not authorized anyone in the United States to repair a Blackberry, so you can't just drop it off somewhere close by and then pick it up later, fully repaired.

So what do you have to do?

For those of you unfamiliar with Blackberry repair, get this, kids, you have to mail your broken Blackberry to RIM in Canada.

But today I heard that AT&T now sends you a replacement until it's repaired, which was never shared with us back when one of our Blackberry Pearls needed a repair last year. AT&T clearly told us it was between us and Blackberry.

Hey, bottom line is that asking your customers to mail you their valuable telephone for any reason is an inefficient (and stupid) business model that only invites problems, promises to give nothing more than either inept Customer Service or falls intolerably short of reasonable - - - and where no amount of internal corporate reasoning is sufficient to justify the inconvenience and potential risk to/for your customers.

Most importantly, the Blackberry certainly cannot be considered a reasonable business enterprise solution to keep customers like us - - - especially after dealing with Apple.

With the Apple iPhone, you find your nearest Apple retailer, log-online for an appointment at the Genius Bar or do it in-store - - - and then just show up or wait your turn. If it's under warranty, they take it in, fix it and you're on your way. If it's not, they tell you your charges and you make your decision.

Apple's sales, retail and Customer Service paradigms are nonpareil, fancy French for something that has no equal, as in the best.

posted by Head Geek

Memo to Apple: we love our new iPhones, but dump thy partner called AT&T

REVIEW

We braved the lines and we're glad we did . . . so far.

Yup, Mrs. Head Geek and I have been waiting for our respective PDA/Cell Phone needs to be met by a device - and the iPhone 2 seemed to fit the bill for both of us.

So with less than three months left on our Blackberry Pearl AT&T contracts, I studied the Nokia line and the Samsung which Sprint just introduced, neither of which could even come close to the physical or software-resident qualities of the iPhone - - - then we talked with a number of friends who are professionals with AT&T, others we knew in the cellular industry and then some friends at Apple - - - and a decision was made to take the time on Friday to go and buy ourselves a pair of iPhones.

Thankfully, my wife had worked for 10-days straight and despite the pressure she placed on me to be with her @ 8 a.m. yesterday, Friday, we decided (I insisted on) waiting until the afternoon to buy them directly from Apple and not from AT&T.

Needless to say, we're still with AT&T because we have to be, but we're unquestionably waiting for that day when Apple announces the end of their relationship with AT&T - along with the date certain when the iPhones will be permanently unlocked and sold through any carrier worldwide.

Well, that's it, nothing more to report other than finding some minor flaws while using some of Apple's Apps Store programs we downloaded - and my surprise that video streaming from YouTube and MLB.com looked much clearer on my WiFi signal than through the new 3G.

But we sure love our iPhones.

posted by Head Geek

Sounds of Boston - Vol. I, No. 1

One of the most enjoyable responsibilities of working on [: neon :] is deciding what and when to shoot the video. As we're still in beta, we've certainly made our share of mistakes, thankfully most of them transparent to you. But that's why they call it a beta.

Anyway, one major mistake we've had to deal with was actually internal and involved not understanding the critical importance of video library archiving and retrieval, i.e., what to do with all of the video we've been shooting, how do we archive and label them - and most importantly, how do we know what each clip has in the clip without having to replay each clip in its entirety, in time-wasting real-time?

We faced that problem this afternoon, when we couldn't find the clip we needed to upload to one of our four video streaming hosts, only to discover that it was sitting not in our Macs, but as a Windows Media File on one of our PCs that we hardly use anymore.

Anyway, we came across a number of unpublished short clips we took one day in and around Boston, and realized we could create a Sounds of Boston theme with them, as a compilation of where we went over a twelve hour period in early May.

So we've embedded the Viddler version of our stream since they encourage everyone to post comments directly to the video, which we have indeed done. So look for the little dots along the progress bar and run your mouse over them to see what we've written - and we'll tell you what you're looking at.

So here's 2 minutes, 56 seconds of some great sounds and sights in this beeyouuteefull city we call home, Boston, Mass.

LIVE VIDEO: Apple's new Boylston store opening

Still recovering from an amazingly eventful day yesterday at the Grand Opening of Apple's now largest store in America on Boylston Street in Boston, we noticed that some of our visitors to [: neon :] were being directed to a not-so-updated update page of ours - and hence were not getting to see these videos.

So, we decided to post them anew, immediately below.

Enjoy.

UPDATE2: Here's the first video we've been able to post-production edit. Stand-by for possibly one maybe two more.

It took a while, but we've finally combined the three longest/largest video files we took for the afternoon in the video immediately below and these are the most energized. You'll see the employees doing their own rally on the spiral staircase and then running out of the store, in formation, onto the sidewalk, across Boylston and down Fairfield, high-fiving the customers waiting to get in, only to eventually re-enter the store through the back entrance. Then you'll see the first customers on line be let into the store in groups of about twenty, each cheering, arms raised and actually running into the store. You decide how cool or how hokey this customer and employee Pep Rally really was in the end, but one thing you cannot question is the spirit and absolute attention to detail Apple is known to have.

Anyway, major kudos to the good people at Apple P.R., all consummate professionals and despite the crowds and the pressure, couldn't have been nicer to us. And lastly, a special shout to Ms. "Burberry" with Chanel glasses and a Gucci handbag from Apple corporate. Thank you for your compliments about what we wrote in [: neon :], it was a pleasure meeting you as well. Your company puts on quite a show. Quite a show.

Apple's Boston-Boylston store Grand Opening Video Update

UPDATE2: Here's the first video we've been able to post-production edit. Stand-by for possibly one maybe two more.

It took a while, but we've finally combined the three longest/largest video files we took for the afternoon in the video immediately below and these are the most energized. You'll see the employees doing their own rally on the spiral staircase and then running out of the store, in formation, onto the sidewalk, across Boylston and down Fairfield, high-fiving the customers waiting to get in, only to eventually re-enter the store through the back entrance. Then you'll see the first customers on line be let into the store in groups of about twenty, each cheering, arms raised and actually running into the store. You decide how cool or how hokey this customer and employee Pep Rally really was in the end, but one thing you cannot question is the spirit and absolute attention to detail Apple is known to have.

Anyway, major kudos to the good people at Apple P.R., all consummate professionals and despite the crowds and the pressure, couldn't have been nicer to us. And lastly, a special shout to Ms. "Burberry" with Chanel glasses and a Gucci handbag from Apple corporate. Thank you for your compliments about what we wrote in [: neon :], it was a pleasure meeting you as well. Your company puts on quite a show. Quite a show.

Apple/Boylston Grand Opening Update

UPDATE: We have video of the entire event and much more here.

Just managed to get out of the crowd to post this audio, since I won't be able to post the multiple videos until later tonight. Have some terrific shots.

Unbelievable is all I can say. What an experience, what an incredible Public Relations team they have.

UPDATE: Well, TalkShoe just surprised me and made the audio file size more than 3 Gigs, yikes, so forget it, I won't have time to break it up and post it right now. Instead, go to this link, Apple Boylston Grand Opening - 05-15-08 and give a listen.

Will post everything later tonight.

Boston/Boylston: thousands expected for Grand Opening of largest Apple store in U.S.

UPDATE: We have video of the entire event and much more here.

UPDATE: 05/15/08 - 02:58 - Just about ready to leave but we wanted to test something first. Yesterday, we subscribed to TalkShoe for LIVE audio shows to post here, so today I thought, if we can't be absolutely certain whether we can do a LIVE streaming video feed from the new store, maybe we can at least schedule a LIVE radio feed via TalkShoe and through my cellular phone from the site. So the LIVE audio feed is set to begin @ 5:30 p.m. Eastern and will go for up to 2 hours. To join in the conversation LIVE, just dial (724) 444-7444 no earlier than 5:25 p.m. and then when prompted, enter the show code 19595, or just log-on to http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/19595. Hope it works. We'll give it our best shot.

It's beautiful, isn't it? This is the pic Apple now has on their site. Can't really tell if it's an actual shot or a CAD-style rendering.

Wow, can't wait to see it - although planning on going to the Grand Opening of Apple's newest store tonight may not be as easy as it sounds for us - or anyone. Been hearing on the local news that "thousands" are expected to be lined up for the 6:00 p.m. door opening, which means that a casual stroll to the Starbucks a few doors away may be darn near impossible.

Crowd control.

Boston's finest everywhere. (Love those guys).

Traffic snarls. (God bless the MBTA).

Barricades?

I do have some ideas as to how to bypass the crowds, but one thing is certain now, we will not be able to LIVE feed any kind of video as we have no air cards to deploy. I know, dumb mistake. But I also have an audio idea that just might work, but I'll be scrambling this afternoon to see if it does.

Anyway, we'll head out around 3 or 3:30 this afternoon to begin our trek on the T. The goal is to be there no later than around 4 to get a good enough position to take some pics. However and from experience, my guess is that they'll have a designated area in front of the store's entrance for the media (sometimes referred to as a press pen), and if so, any hopes of staying up front may be dimmed since we've been unable to secure any credentials in such a short window between announcement and day of.

So, we'll do our part and keep you posted throughout the day with LIVE blogging, and if you drop in to [: neon :] every chance you get to see what's up, then we can share the excitement.

New Apple store/Boston: a [:neon:] audio update

UPDATE: We have video of the entire event and much more here.

Experimenting at the moment, having just registered [:neon:] with Talkshoe and created a podcast where I provide a very brief (2'04) update on the Apple store opening in Boston tomorrow night.

BTW and FYI, since we recorded the audio you'll hear below, the traditional television types here in Boston have been all over the story and filmed tours of the new Apple store for the 6 o'clock news and I gotta tell 'ya that it looks both enormous (floor space) and glass and chrome modern exquisite (design).

Anyway, here's the audio I did through Talkshoe, let's see if it adds anything to our multimedia mix, eh?