Apple have just released their iDisk Application which allows you to access any files you have stored on your iDisk from your iPhone. The application is free and can be downloaded from HERE
I have been reading several articles over the past day which have been discussing this very topic. Ed Hansberry on the Information Week blog was commenting on the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study that reported that Texting while driving means you are 23 times more likely to crash than those concentrating on driving.
At the same time I saw Steve Riley’s Tweet of a funeral home advert :
omg don txt n drive, we don wanna b ur nxt service provider
Please don’t be stupid enough to think that sending a text is more important than your life or the people in the car in front of you that you are about to hit!
I really enjoyed reading Dr Taylor’s blog post about the ‘5 Smartphone Rules to Live By’ which outlines some guidance on how to make sure your Smartphone delivers positive productivity and doesn’t become a distraction.
I have to admit that I am guilty of some of the questions he asks but I do try and enforce many of the rules he is suggesting.
Rule #1: Don’t look at your smartphone in the morning until you get to work. Peeking at your email or phone messages before you have dressed or had breakfast will create unnecessary distraction, worry, and stress. If you’re married with children, it will also prevent you from being engaged with your family during breakfast. In fact, don’t even look at your smartphone during the drive to work; again, it would serve no purpose as you can’t—or, at least, you shouldn’t—be thumb typing during your commute (unless you’re on a train or bus and you can respond to your phone and email messages).
Rule #2: Don’t look at your smartphone during the day unless you are ready to act on it. It’s not uncommon for businesspeople to look at their smartphones as they head into a meeting or just before a conference call. The primary consequence of doing this is that you will be distracted from your next task. You will be thinking about what you found on your smartphone instead of focusing on the task ahead.
Rule #3: Turn off all smartphones during meetings. In fact, every company should have a “no smartphone” rule for all meetings. There are few things more irritating, distracting, and productivity-killing than having people at a meeting looking at and typing into their smartphones. They are clearly not paying attention to the meeting and, therefore, unable to contribute in any meaningful way. It also distracts others at the meeting. It wastes time and prolongs meetings because no one is focusing on the agenda. Quality and productivity suffer too because the lack of full engagement means that effective problem solving and decision making will be nearly impossible.
Rule #4: Don’t check your smartphone less than 30 minutes before you go to bed. If there are calls or emails you think you must respond to you, you will get to bed later and you’ll get riled up, so you’ll have a harder time falling asleep. The reality is that, in most cases, they can wait until morning, so best not to look. At worst, choose a time between 30 and 60 minutes before bedtime when you take a last look at your smartphone. At best, commit to not checking your smartphone at all in the evening.
Rule #5: Don’t do your smartphone when you are doing life. In other words, don’t look at your smartphone if you are interacting with others, doing something that is supposed to clear your mind of work, such as exercise, meditation, having a meal, watching a movie, or hanging out with family or friends.. There is nothing more annoying to family and friends than to be with you when you are making business calls or responding to email—why are you even with them if you’re with them in body only? It’s okay to check your smartphone periodically, but ONLY IF you don’t interrupt more important life stuff and ONLY IF you are expecting something that you may have to act on quickly
Being conscious of the potential of the Smartphone you carry is crucial but knowing when to use it is even more important. We all have to make sure we are in charge of our productivity tools as greater flexibility also comes with greater responsibility.
You can read Dr Taylor’s post HERE
Microsoft have just announced their Race to Market challenge to inspire developers to create applications for the Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
Developers can submit applications to the Marketplace and the best applications will be competing for prizes such as:
The applications will be judged in the following way:
Further details are available at http://mobilethisdeveloper.com
You can also read the blog post announcing the contest HERE
A timely report as I was just looking into this area for a review later this week. Gartner have been looking at Wireless and Mobile spending and discovered some shocking insights that 80% of Enterprises will overspend by an average of 15%.
International roaming was another key challenge which was highlighted – something in Europe we struggle with more than the US. Through 2010, 10 percent of users that travel internationally will make up 35 percent of the total service costs.
You can get more information HERE
If you are looking for medical reference material for your iPhone then this could be very interesting for you!
Medhand have just released 4 Oxford Handbooks onto the Apple App Store.
A great way to carry this content!
You can download the application from HERE
I few weeks ago I was searching for a Mind Mapping solution to use. After hitting Twitter and getting a variety of suggestions I starting checking each of them out…
My favourite so far has been Mindmeister.com. Mindmap creation is superb with simple keyboard shortcuts to enable you to quickly capture those precious thoughts and insights. It allows the export to other applications such as Mindjet and to other formats for sharing such as PDF and even creating Word templates.
You can signup for free to try it and then there are a range of subscriptions!
Google have just released Latitude for the iPhone!
If you aren’t familiar with Latitude it allows you to see the location of your friends. The application is a web based application and you can also control your privacy settings allowing you to specify if/when your friends can see you.
To try it out just go to google.com/latitude on your iPhone
The initial release of the Palm Pre caused lots of confusion for Business users as it claimed to have lots of Exchange Activesync support however it didn’t implement (m)any of the IT security policies and was even blocked from accessing Exchange because of this.
Palm has just released an update to the WebOS to resolve some of this. The latest relase brings several additions to the support for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), including remote wipe, PIN/password requirements, inactivity timeout, improved certificate handling, and more.
You can get more details HERE
According to Digitimes – HTC will transition 50% of it’s sales to Android based devices.
If this is true this is a huge shift in strategy for HTC who had previously asserted their commitment to Windows Mobile.
I suspect the majority of devices will be in the low end but this could still be a big impact!
