Does it mean my blog is a failure? Am I not getting the hits I want or the comments I want? Not really.

One of the things I’ve learned is not to try and treat all communication the same way. Not all conversations are the same. Not all mechanisms for conversing are the same.

The trick is knowing where, when, and how to have the right conversation. Sometimes, that’s my blog. Sometimes it’s Twitter, Facebook, a phone call, or in person. Sometimes you have to use all these forms together.

Right now, one of my major conversations is with Check Point Software’s customers. This conversation is mostly on CPUG, but I am also seeking out and having customer conversations on Twitter, Facebook, and other places. Yes, this is my job and my personal blog is not necessarily the right place to have that conversation

Meanwhile, this is the right place for this ephemeral thought. Or is it? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Comments

• 27 January 2010, Tweets that mention Following the Conversation -- Topsy.com writes: [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jonathan Jensen, phoneboyblog. phoneboyblog said: New blog post: Following the Conversation http://phoneboy.com/3317/following-the-conversation-2 [...]
• 27 January 2010, ernst albus writes: Well, as you may see, I'm from "good old Germany"... Let me put it this way...First your conclusion isn't bad, but the reason why is people in most cases don't have even the idea of communicating on a "higher?" educated level. To me it looks like more than 90% of the people are just sloppy in using their brain...some call it simply DUMB!!! Just look around and you will know what I mean. So, take care, there are some people in the world feeling a bit like you... E.
• 5 February 2010, Shawn Smith writes: I went through your post and would like to comment on the communication part.We all have such problems and you aren't the only one, earlier I also had such thoughts but I made up my mind to loose it off and I succeeded. So, be cheerful...

Related Posts

• Good Things Come From My Writing
• Disconnecting From The Twitter Hive
• I Need Patience
• Make Time To Blog
• Why and How I Use Twitter

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

I was originally running my personal blog on Vox, but I decided that I might actually want to use the data elsewhere. Vox does not make it easy to export the data I already put in Vox, so I’m giving up the ghost, copying over the stuff I might want to save, and shutting it down.

The personal blog is more for stuff that doesn’t generally fit with the techie stuff I write here. Not entirely sure what I’ll put there, yet, but it’s there and it’s on a server I have some control over. And I can get the data out if and when I want to.

Related Posts

• A Fresh Start
• Why do I feel like it’s Prom all over again?
• One Year Ago
• Post to Vox via LifeBlog on Nokia NSeries Phones!
• orkut

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

This topic seem quite timely as this past week, several of my followers on Twitter got bit by the latest attempt at hacking Twitter accounts. At least three of my followers sent me direct messages on Twitter that were a little suspicious:

this youz ? ? http://is.gd/4H1qh

lost a ton of weight and feel better here http://ringys4u.com

hi. i lost excess fat with http://loseweight.asdjiiw.com it works…

These message looked suspicious. I didn’t click on the links and I immediately warned the affected individuals to change their passwords.

Of course, Twitter is not the only place this happens. In fact, these kinds of messages have being sent out as long as email spam has been around, which have been going on at least as long as I’ve been on the Internet.

Nothing New Under The Sun

I’ve been at this “social networking” thing a while. Aside from starting out on computer bulletin boards in the late 1980s (you know, the kind you used your computer modem to dial into), which is one of the earlier forms of so-called social networking, I’ve participated in IRC, instant messaging, USENET, mailing lists (also ran my own for 9 years), online forums, blogging (phoneboy.com has been one since 2005), and of course use the “current” social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook.

The main thing that differentiates these service from one another is the interface used and whether or not the services permitted real-time communication with others. Beyond that, they all fulfill a fundamental human need–the need to be heard and understood by others.

The Value of Social Networking

By this point in time, I think most of us understand why social networking is valuable. It’s great for making new connections with people, strengthening existing connections with people, being part of (or starting) a conversation, and sharing ideas and things you’ve created.

For business, it can even be more powerful. Connecting with more customers more often can mean more sales. It can also allow you to get better visibility into what’s going wrong with your business, for example customer service snafus. Businesses have to accept that they cannot control the conversation about them. However, they have a fighting chance of guiding it in the right direction by actively participating in the conversation.

Where Email and “Social Media” Tools Differ

It’s relatively easy to send an unsolicited email to someone. All you have to do is find their email–or guess it–and send them an email. Furthermore, it’s relatively easy to “spoof” an email. I figured out in the early 1990s how to send an email from someone appearing to be from “root@heaven.org” by talking directly with the email server. While mail servers have gotten smarter about these things over the years, it can still be done relatively trivially.

The newer social media tools make this a bit more challenging as a “friend” or “follower” relationship is required. For example, I can only send someone a direct message on Twitter to someone that is actually following me. Facebook requires the person to be a “friend.” This severely limits who can send you a private message and you can be fairly certain who sent the message to you.

Despite these controls, I still see “spam” on Twitter and Facebook. And yes, like what happens with email from time to time, it appears to come from a “friend.” But unlike email, where your identity can be easily spoofed, something more nefarious has to happen.

URL Shorteners

Prior to Twitter, there was not a huge called for so called URL Shortening services, which take a long URL and make it shorter. tinyurl.com is one of the oldest such services. However, the limited message size of Twitter and the increase in URLs shared over the service necessitated the use of these services in order to allow for text to accompany the URL and, of course, allow for URLs that might be longer than 140 characters

URL Shorteners are great for exactly this reason–they make long URLs shorter. They also provide other services as well, such as the ability to see who clicked on the link and when. However, they are also bad because they mask the original URL, which, if you could see it, might cause you not to click on that link. For example, would you click on a link for either of these URLs?

• http://www.xzxxy.cn/cgi-bin/pwn-system?type=win
• http://www.paypal.com.hax0r.pl/webscr?cmd=_home

You can tell by looking at these URLs that something is up. However, Look at these two URLs:

• http://bit.ly/3Ha5Mo
• http://bit.ly/N03v1l

Can you tell what evil might lurk behind these shortened links just by looking at the link?

How Do I Get Spam From My Friends on Social Networking Sites?

With friends sending you benign looking links via direct message, we have ourselves a perfect storm for the spreading of spam. Theoretically, these messages came from someone you trust, causing you to let down your guard and think it’s ok to click on the link. The link leads to a website that contains a piece of malware that, without your knowledge or consent, either steals your Twitter credentials stored on your computer, or hijacks your existing Twitter session and sends out similar links to your friends. Or much worse.

While that can and does happen, the other possibility is that you were flat out tricked into giving your Twitter credentials to a third-party that either looked like the Twitter site or purported to do something of benefit to you (e.g. help you gain more followers). While not all third-party sites that ask for your Twitter credentials are bad, some are.

Information Disclosure

Speaking of information disclosure, there are plenty of other opportunities to disclose information on social networking sites that, under a different context, you might not disclose. My buddy Kellman has a great post on those “quizzes” that make the rounds from time to time and what great sources of information they can be about you. While some of the questions are truly innocuous, some “key” questions could be sprinkled in there that, when used in the right circumstances, could easily be used to “reset” an account password or gain access to an account.

Protect Yourself

The dangers in social networking aren’t new at all. They’ve been there for at least a decade. Fortunately, the ways to protect yourself aren’t new, either, though far too many people forget the basics.

Careful With That Link, Eugene: Like links you receive in email, particularly unsolicited ones, all links on social networking sites should be carefully evaluated. Since the links themselves are often shortened URLs, look at then text around it. Usually that text is a huge clue as it contains misspelling or contains “spammy” looking text. Your account could be sending those same kinds of messages if you’re not careful about what links you click on.

Use Different Passwords, Change Them Often: Each of your social networking sites as well as all other important websites should have different, complex password assigned to them, and they should be changed regularly. Since people often use the same password on multiple sites, one compromised account could easily lead to compromising other accounts.

Don’t Blindly Give Out Your Credentials: There are a lot of third party web-based services out there that make use of your social networking services. In the past, the only way for this to occur was to give your credentials to these services. This works, so long as these third party services weren’t somehow compromised, or worse, the services were not what they seemed to be. The one benefit to using something like OAuth (which Twitter does) is that you can revoke a web applications permission quite easily. It doesn’t prevent the third party web service from being compromised.

Keep Your Operating System, Browser Patched: Ensure you have applied all the latest patches from Microsoft, Apple, or whomever supplies your computer’s underlying operating system. Ensure you are using the latest version of your web browser.  If you are using Internet Explorer–especially if you are using Internet Explorer version 6, as is standard on Windows XP, try using a third party browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome.

Browser Plugins Can Help: If you are using Firefox, there are plugins that can help expand those “short” URLs so you can see where it is they will take you. LongURL is a good example of this for Firefox.

Security Software: Windows users should ensure they are running an up-to-date set of security tools that cover anti-virus, anti-malware, and protection from browser-based attacks. Microsoft puts out a free anti-virus/anti-malware tool which is quite good, as does a few other companies. Their free tools do not protect against browser-based attacks. Something like ZoneAlarm ForceField or ZoneAlarm Extreme Security (which includes ForceField and other security features) can be effective protection against these kinds of tools. (Disclosure: I work for Check Point Software, which publishes ZoneAlarm).

Nothing Is Completely Private: Even if you protect your updates on Twitter or are very careful about whom you interact with on Facebook, note that all communications, even so-called “direct” or “private” messages, are not entirely private on social networking services. Accidental disclosure can and does happen, thanks to actions by you or your so-called friends. It’s not always intentional, of course, but it does happen.  And yes, those “quizzes” you might take may contain a so-called identity question that could be used to take over one of your other accounts. Just be careful.

Some Final Thoughts

Social networking has been, and continues to be, quite pervasive in the civilized world. The tools used for this have and will continue to change over time. What hasn’t changed is that there are people out there who do not have your best interest at heart. And while nothing is entirely safe and secure, with a little vigilance, we can spend less time being victims of the latest scam and more time doing what we’re supposed to do on these social networks: communicating and sharing.

Comments

• 2 November 2009, AAfter Search writes: Using some plug-ins can help you keeping your computer protected from malware attacks. For example, when you are clicking on any shortened link on Twitter, use the bit.ly preview feature. It will show you the original page and the long URL.
• 4 November 2009, Protecting Your Privacy On The Social Web | Social Media Explorer writes: [...] The Dangers of Social Networking (phoneboy.com) [...]

Related Posts

• Not Reading Google Reader–And Loving It!
• Not All Social Networking Services Are Created Equal, Quit Treating Them That Way.
• Jaiku Beta
• Social Networking: IN for 2009
• What Did I Say About Consistent Networking on Symbian?

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Unfortunately, when Nokia decided to go to Share Online 3.0, they stripped out the ability to manually configure the client. While I’ve had access to the documentation for creating the configuration file for some time now through Forum Nokia Pro, I hadn’t gotten around to actually making a file. Fortunately, someone came up with a PHP script that does it for me (thanks to eViLrAcEr for bringing it to my attention), though I used this script instead.

With that little matter out of the way, Share Online 3.0 was still failing. Turned out to be nothing more than a missing quote. I also took the opportunity to fix one issue I’ve always had with the script: the text was displaying after the pictures in the generated post. I decided the text should go before the pictures.

I now have a complete system for posting pictures to your WordPress blog from Share Online 3.0.

Known To Work With:

• WordPress 2.7.1 (may work as far back as WordPress 2.3)
• Share Online 3.0 from a Nokia E71 or N95 8GB NAM
• Share Online 4.0 from a Nokia N96 (Confirmed 14 April 2009 by Jaimon)

Installation Instructions (also available in Dutch)

1. Download Lifeblog PHP and Share Online PHP.
2. Generate a favicon.svg file. One option that’s kind of cool is a site called Vector Magic that will take a regular image and convert it to SVG . You can also use a tool like Inkscape to do it.
3. Copy all three files to the root of your WordPress installation. Should be at the same level as wp-blog-header.php.
4. Rename the files to lifeblog.php and shareonline.php make executable if needed.
5. If the root directory of your WordPress installation is not writable, then you will need to create a file called atomdata.txt that is writable by the web server process. In many cases this means the file needs to be made world-writable.
6. Ensure that wp-content/uploads directory is writable by the web server process. In many cases this means the directory needs to be made world-writable.
7. Edit lifeblog.php. See the comments at the top of lifeblog.php.txt on what will need to be edited.
8. Edit shareonline.php, replace all instances of http://example.com with your specific blog URL (e.g. http://lifeblogtest.co.cc). Also replace examplecom with some unique name (in service_id).
9. Access <yourblogurl>/shareonline.php with your web browser on the phone (Share Online 3.0) or configure Lifeblog/Share Online 1.x/2.x. Use the following information as appropriate:
   • Username: admin (or whatever username you use to post)
   • Password: (whatever password you specify in lifeblog.php–not your normal WordPress password)
   • Server Address: http://www.examplewordpressblog.com/lifeblog.php (only if using Lifeblog app to post or older Share Online)

After that, you should be able to use Share Online 3.0 or Lifeblog on your Nokia handset to post to your WordPress blog.

Troubleshooting Instructions:

If you want to ensure your client is working properly, feel free to use my test server by pointing your web browser at http://lifeblogtest.co.cc/shareonline.php and use the following credentials:

• User: lbuser
• Password: lbusertest

View the website (http://lifeblogtest.co.cc/), which is mobile friendly. All posts send here will disappear after 24 hours or so.

If you end up using this on more than one site, ensure you use a unique filename for the .svg file on each site in order to ensure that each site maintains its unique icon. You will need to replace all instances of favicon.svg in shareonline.php with the unique filename you’ve chosen.

[Update 2 July 2009] If you’re having problems uploading large pictures to your blog, try adding the following to your php.ini:

[Pcre]
;PCRE library backtracking limit.
pcre.backtrack_limit=5000000

To debug your own installation for other issues, do the following:

• Uncomment out any of the lines that have “logme” in them.
• Attempt to post
• Send me the following information via email (address listed to the right):
  • atomdata.txt file
  • Phone you are using to post with firmware version (Dial *#0000#)
  • Version of Lifeblog software on the phone, if possible to obtain:
    • On N80i: Tools > App. Mgr. > Lifeblog, then Select > View Details
    • On N93 and N73, I don’t see a clear way to get that information since it is an included app.
  • Version of Share Online (Options > About)

Post the information in the comments and/or send it to me in email (contact on the right). Understand that I have a “real job” and I’m not making any money at this, so support for this script is not guaranteed.

[ Update 3 January 2010 ] I have changed the test URL to http://lifeblogtest.co.cc (it was previously http://packetflow.co.cc/lifeblog/).

Comments

• 1 January 1970, Zit Seng's Superwall writes:
• 12 March 2009, Post to WordPress Blogs from Nokia Lifeblog writes: [...] 10 March 2009: People wanting to use Share Online 3.x should read Posting to WordPress Blogs From Share Online 3.0 [...]
• 12 March 2009, Post to WordPress using Share on OVI 3.0 « nokiAAddict.com writes: [...] Post to WordPress using Share on OVI 3.0 12 03 2009 Phoneboy has brought us news its now possible again to use Share on OVI v3.0 to post to WordPress.Full instructions can be found over on Phoneboy’s website HERE [...]
• 12 March 2009, Pablo writes: Hi, the link for the file shareonline.php is broken (shareonlinepghp.txt instead of shareonlinephp.txt.
• 12 March 2009, PhoneBoy writes: Link fixed
• 11 April 2009, Lifeblog Script Test Blog « Packetflow Lifeblog Test writes: [...] Online/Lifeblog implementation on their phone is compatible with my script that enables you to post to WordPress blogs from Share Online or Lifeblog. Posts will be available for 24 hours, then automatically [...]
• 14 August 2009, Suramya's Blog writes: to have the option to make blog posts directly from lifeblog on my N95 for a while now but so far was unsuccessful because no plugin existed that worked with the latest version of WordPress. So I downloaded the latest available copy of the plugin fromthis blog postand modified it to work with the latest version of WordPress. You can download the latest version of the plugin from the Scripts Directory. This version works with WordPress 2.8.x (I tested it with 2.8.2 and 2.8.4). Changelog: Ver 3.5: (15th Aug 2009): * Plug

Related Posts

• Online Share 3.0 Launches
• Update to Nokia Lifeblog/WordPress Tool
• Lifeblog Working Once Again With WordPress
• Posting from Share Online 3.0 Test
• Post to WordPress Blogs from Nokia Lifeblog

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Enter Wordmobi . Wordmobi talks to WordPress blogs and allows you to both write posts, but also manage comments. The 0.6 version fixes the usual assortment of bugs, but also adds new features, including:

1. The ability to craft and save posts without a network connection. Previous versions did not allow this, making it difficult to, say, write a blog post on an airplane
2. Post YouTube links, which brings up a URL with everything but the object ID filled in. I don’t see much use for this feature, but clearly someone wanted it
3. Can send posts to Twitter when you save them.

The software is for Nokia S60 devices that support Python. I personally use my Nokia E71, which works great with Wordmobi!

Posted by Wordmobi

Comments

• 9 March 2009, Ricky Cadden writes: Nice! While I can't use this for Symbian-Guru, due to an overly complicated theme, I certainly can use it for RickyCadden.com! Thanks for the heads up, dude.
• 10 March 2009, Texrat writes: Man... someone needs to create a version for the tablets!
• 16 March 2009, Atliphoneblog's Weblog writes: free SMS gravy train dries up (news.cnet.com) Google’s free SMS gravy train dries up (news.cnet.com) Gmail SMS (googlesystem.blogspot.com) Skype offers SMS voicemail notifications: good idea, poor execution (skypejournal.com)WordMobi 0.6: Now It Rocks(phoneboy.com) Skype and SpinVox offer voicemail to text conversion (downloadsquad.com) Get Ready For Google Voice (lockergnome.com) Google relaunches GrandCentral as Google Voice (downloadsquad.com) Google Voice, the New Version of GrandCentral (googlesystem

Related Posts

• Testing Wordmobi
• Getting My CCSA/CCSE Again
• Why and How I Use Twitter
• Random Nokia-Related Thoughts
• GrandCentral on my Mobile

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Why the change? Furthermore, why write about it? Because I think it’s important to signal a slight change to the topic areas I plan on covering here.

I have always covered, to some extent, gadgets. Instead of trying to maintain a separate gadgets blog, which I started a few months ago, I plan on keeping that on phoneboy.com. I’ll probably copy the posts over at some point to phoneboy.com also.

I removed VoIP from the tagline because, well, it won’t be the reason I cover something any longer. I will cover some of the larger telecom issues as well as interesting telecom services that may or may not use VoIP. VoIP plumbing that is still evolving to a certain extent, but it’s still pretty similar to the way it was back when I first started this blog. (And please, I don’t want to discuss the whole VoIP is dead thing again, ok?)

The main addition to this blog: network security topics. For all my aspirations that want to go do work in mobility or VoIP or whatever, Information Security–or at least supporting people in that field–has been what has kept the mortgage paid for the past 12 years. Given I am likely to end up working for “the leader in securing the Internet” (a.k.a. Check Point Software), assuming the acquisition of Nokia‘s Security Appliance business closes, I’m probably going to be in the field a bit longer.

Let’s face it, I also enjoy trying to take ominous sounding things like the MD5/SSL hack that was recently announced and breaking it down for people like I do the other topics I cover. (on this hack, don’t worry too much–yet)

Comments

• 19 January 2009, JV writes: I look forward to your blogs on network security.!!!!

Related Posts

• Okay, so I can select my network on my Cingular Orange Phone
• Why VoIP Hardware Is Boring
• Texting and Driving About to be Illegal in WA State
• Daylight Saving Time Wastes Engergy — Who Knew?
• My Phone Turned Orange!

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

You probably didn’t notice because I’ve done these things so many times, I can almost do it in my sleep. I switched webhosts. Really, it’s not the kind of thing you need to tell people about usually, if you do it right.

However, one of my friends on Twitter was telling me about a hosting deal that was too good to be true on Dreamhost. Two years worth of hosting for $21.48! I, of course, signed up right away before the deal expired yesterday. While the experience was a little rocky–their signup page was getting pummeled–I got in. They have a slightly LESS good deal going today (only 20% off instead of 90%), but it may still be worth checking out.

As I write this, I am in DNS purgatory, waiting for the nameserver records to change over. However, I was able to get my two WordPress sites moved over without too much issue. I have a couple of custom sites I will need to spend some time on to get them moved over, but I suspect that won’t take a lot of time, either.

I can’t assume this moved completely without incident, so if you see anything funny on my site, let me know!

Related articles by Zemanta

• [via lifehacker] New Year’s Deal: Get 24 Months of Hosting + Domain for $11
• Call me crazy about DreamHost
• IE Domain Prices Reduced For January

Related Posts

• VoIP Blog Dashboard Online
• VoIPGirl is Back!
• Went Quicker Than Expected
• National Semiconductor Taking Back Company-issued iPods?
• Got My MacBook Back–But Apple Didn’t Fix It

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

I wrote so many pieces in the past couple of years just to write them that I reached a point where I looked at everything coming across the wire and said meh, even to stuff I used to think was cool. My job situation most certainly didn’t help. The things that were really in my craw were quite simply not fit for public consumption.

One of the reasons I gave myself this project of Ins and Outs was I needed something that I might actually have feelings about, be it good or bad. Strong feelings make for particularly good writing, and the topics I chose are all things I’ve had strong feelings about at one time or another.

Social networking has replaced a lot of my need for incidental blog posts. My core audience is on these services and I can interact with them in quick, short-form bursts. Sometimes, all I need to say about something can happen in 140 characters.

I think blogging every day is not as necessary as it once was, though I still think it is important to do regularly. How regularly I will do it remains to be seen. It will depend greatly on how and when my job situation works itself out as well as how often I come across issues I feel really passionate about!

I burned out, but I am slowly coming back to life.

This year, I’m

Related Posts

• Light Blogging Ahead
• Light Blogging Ahead
• More Light Blogging Ahead
• Next Week’s Posts Mostly Planned
• Lighter Blogging Ahead

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of Christmas. It’s not that I’m not a fan of families getting together, seeing the joy of the kids opening Christmas presents on Christmas morning, or even seeing “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the 30th time. I just personally have a hard time getting into the holiday “spirit,” whatever that is.

Despite my personal issues surrounding the holidays, I tend to take this time of year to look back at the previous year and look ahead to the next. Clearly, given the recent Nokia/Check Point announcements, some changes are in store for me!

The prolonged job uncertainty plus my general disillusionment with much of the blogosphere and social networking has caused me to reexamine exactly where I am focusing my energies. The most obvious result is an almost standstill on blogging, but there have been other subtle changes as well.

With this in mind, I am going to do a series of posts on what I think is IN and OUT for 2009, at least as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully it will generate some discussion and get the creative juices flowing again.

Related Posts

• Jeff Pulver: Go To eComm!
• Social Networking: IN for 2009
• Get a Nokia 2610 for Free, Help a Great Website!
• Portable Mobile Charger for iPhone
• The WikiReader

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Originally, the Security Appliance business of Nokia, where I work, was to be sold to a “financial investor” of some sort, creating a new, independent company in the process. Given the challenging economic climate, becoming part of our Check Point, our long-time business partner, makes a lot of sense.

As an employee, I have to admit the prospect of going to Check Point is more palatable than “starting over” in a startup, even one with a significant number of employees, a established business and revenue stream. Check Point has been in business since 1993 and employs over 1800 people. They are in almost as many Fortune 500 companies as Microsoft is. It is a strong company that’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

I have lots of questions. Everyone affected by this change likely does. I don’t know much, yet, but at least now we can begin to get some answers.

Comments

• 22 December 2008, Jonathan Greene writes: Good to hear you have some stability coming ... hope it all works out for you man!
• 22 December 2008, Dawn writes: This is a vendor whose business overlaps with ours in so many ways. I don't think anyone can promise if we have jobs with Checkpoint.
• 22 December 2008, I work for Check Point (Tel Aviv office) writes: welcome aboard!
• 23 December 2008, PhoneBoy writes: Nokia is selling their Security Appliance business to long-time partner Check Point
• 23 December 2008, Coverage of Check Point Acquisition of Nokia’s Security Appliance Business writes: [...] I write this, I am still a Nokia employee. Yesterday’s announcement did not change that, at least until the deal closes sometime in the next three months. Meanwhile, [...]
• 2 January 2009, Blogging: IN for 2009, but Changes Ahead writes: [...] I looked at everything coming across the wire and said meh, even to stuff I used to think was cool. My job situation most certainly didn’t help. The things that were really in my craw were quite simply not fit [...]

Related Posts

• Blogging: IN for 2009, but Changes Ahead
• Coverage of Check Point Acquisition of Nokia’s Security Appliance Business

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Meanwhile, I just have been completely uninspired in the blogging realm. I read the stuff that comes across my social networks–I haven’t bothered to look in Google Reader for at least a month–and it just seems like more of the same. How many of us are saying the same stuff?

The VoIP industry seems to be touting “lower cost calling” in these tough economic times, which I can’t say I can argue with. For example, the folks from Truphone have managed to make their iPhone application both make and receive calls over WiFi and launched a cheaper calling rate plan that requires a monthly fee. This just seems more of the same, even if it is a message that people are going to want to hear right now.

Other stuff of interest I’ve run across includes the new Nokia Messaging client (formerly Nokia Email). It’s finally usable now that they’ve made it so the client doesn’t jump in your face on startup. It also just seems more polished as well. Runs nice alongside RoadSync on my E71, which I’ve been trying out as well.

RoadSync provides a slightly nicer email interface inside the standard S60 mail interface. I’ve paired it up with the company directory only version of Mail for Exchange, which RoadSync seems to leave out. You have access to the Global Address List inside RoadSync when sending email, but I don’t see a way to search in the Global Address List and add any conatcts found to your phone as a contact.

Finally, of more immediate concern to me is our crazy winter weather here in the Pacific Northwest. After a relatively mild autumn, we started our descent into snowmageddon nearly a week ago. Temps dipped below freezing last weekend and have mostly remained there since. Precipitation has been in the form of snow–something we get around these parts around this time every year, but not to the point where we need roads plowed and sanded. Our municipalities are ill-equipped for this kind of weather, as are local drivers.

Hopefully, I won’t have to go out into the snow on Sunday, as it’s looking like it’s gonna be another nasty day, complete with snow and possibly ice. Depends on what the temperatures end up being, of course.

Related Posts

• Seasons Greetings from TruPhone
• How Gizmo Project Will Work on the Nokia N80i
• Use PhoneGnome From Your Nokia N95
• Gizmo Project on the Nokia N80: Now I Want It!
• Nokia Licenses NAT Traversal Technology for VoIP

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Meanwhile, I need to get back to my sorry inbox.

Posted by Wordmobi

Related Posts

• Getting My CCSA/CCSE Again
• WordMobi 0.6: Now It Rocks
• Testing Wavelog Version 2
• Testing Wavelog
• A Tale of Three Speed Tests

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

This new conference called SocComm isn’t about VoIP. It’s about social communications. It’s about all the ways people communicate with each other. Things like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, online games, and more.

Quoting from Jeff’s blog:

“Presence” is quickly becoming the trigger point for communication. I grew up in an era where the dial-tone on my home phone meant something to me. Today and in the future I believe that Presence is the new Dial-tone and that more and more communication sessions will happen because of presence. The evolution of presence has huge implications for a number of industries, including: advertising, media and telecom.

Let me repeat what he said: presence is the new dial-tone. I think that’s a powerful statement that has all kinds of implications. This conference will explore what exactly this means.

SocComm 2009 will be taking place February 10-11 in New York City. Jeff is looking for speakers for this event. He’ll take proposals until 5th December 2008, so if you’re interested, let him know!

I’d love to go to this conference myself, though I’m not sure how I am going to afford to make the trek. I can assure you, though, it will be well worth your time.

Comments

• 21 November 2008, The Jeff Pulver Blog - Notes, comments and observations writes: taking place February 10-11, 2009 in New York City. I’d like to acknowledge a number of friends who have helped to spread the word about SocComm: Andy Abramson: Pulver Goes Social Dameon D. Welch-Abernathy (a.k.a. “PhoneBoy”):Jeff Pulver Is Starting Another Revolution: SocCommKen Camp and Sheryl Breuker: SocComm / The Social Communications Summit - February 10-11 2009 in New York City Doug Mohney: SPOTLIGHT: Jeff Pulver's one degree of Obama separation - o.k. this had nothing to do with SocComm but it was Doug’s way of
• 26 January 2009, Home -- Alec Saunders SquawkBox writes: more communication sessions will happen because of presence. The evolution of presence has huge implications for a number of industries, including: advertising, media and telecom. February 10, New York City. Related articles by ZemantaJeff Pulver Is Starting Another Revolution: SocCommSocComm Summit Agenda Update Attending SocComm and Search Engine Strategies NYC 09 Attending SocComm and Search Engine Strategies NYC 09 Momentum for SocComm is Building…

Related Posts

• Me? A top VoIP blogger?
• orkut
• Marcelo’s in a lot of Jeff Pulver’s Pictures
• A sane approach for post-disaster communications
• Twitter is…

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

If you can’t at least get my name right when you pitch me in email, I’m not going to write about your (client’s) products, simple as that. It’s not hard to figure out what my name is, or even how to spell it right. Getting it wrong on the first go, that’s just sloppy, sloppy PR.

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Here I was grousing about not finding something to be passionate about and today, my fellow Nokians in Nokia Research Center have come up with a service called Nokia Friend View that combines social networking and location in a compelling way.

Nokia Friend View requires a client that runs on your S60 3rd Edition device. Status can be updated easily from the mobile phone. Your location can be updated automatically either with GPS, using cell phone tower location, or manually. If you’re not comfortable sharing your location, or you want to save some battery life, you can always turn this feature off as you desire.

The interface where all your friends show up on a map reminds me quite a bit of Twittervision, though unlike Twittervision, it doesn’t jump around the map. You can, however, see all of your friends on the map and scroll around to them as you see fit.

The other important thing is that you can comment on other people’s status updates. Comments are kept with the original status update so they are easy to find. Also, as people comment on a particular status, it is moved to the top of the most recent status updates list, making it easy to follow active conversations!

I had been comparing this application to Jaiku all day, which Google bought out a while ago. This seems to me like this is next logical step to what Jaiku could have become, though it seems that Google or the Jaiku guys aren’t really saying much about future plans, and certainly haven’t released a new client in quite some time!

One thing that I appreciate that the Nokia Friend View client does is allows you to add friends from the client itself. You get notified of friend requests in real time and can easily accept or reject them. It’d be nice if one could see more profile information before accepting, but it’s a step up from Jaiku!

If you are not blessed enough to have an S60 3rd Edition device, then you can also use the web interface, which offers much the same functionality as the mobile client. However, browser support for the website seems to be limited to Firefox 2.x., Internet Explorer 6.x, and Safari. Various attempts to use Firefox 3.x, Google Chrome, or nightlies of Webkit met with not having the maps load. If you try and use Internet Explorer 7, you get a message saying the browser is not supported.

The service is not perfect, of course, as the service is experimental and the client was launched through Nokia Beta Labs. The only major issue I ran into on the client was that it would crash when I received multiple friend invites and I accepted one of them. A minor issue is that it doesn’t remember the zoom level I chose between sessions.

Things I’d like the service to have include: a proper mobile-friendly version of the website and service, some kind of SMS support, and an open API that would allow integration with third party services (e.g. Twitter) or even third party clients. However, for a first release, I am very impressed!

If you have a Nokia Account (i.e. for Ovi services), you can use it with Nokia Friend View. Otherwise, signing up takes just a minute or two. Once you’ve done that, download it to your Nokia S60 device and give it a try. If you want to add me as a friend, I am phoneboy (and it is case sensitive when you add friends, as I’ve found out).

I hope that my colleagues at Nokia continue to support and develop this service, as it really shows a lot of promise!

Comments

• 6 November 2008, Harry writes: I get confused that what it is all about? ========================= Harry Social Bookmarking

Related Posts

• Google Latitude: Why Can’t Nokia Do This?
• Odd man out
• Sleepovers and Gutter Cleaning
• Off to Birmingham
• Gizmo Project on Nokia N80 and Nokia N95–A Proper Version

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a