General

Nice comment on Lifeblog from a user

Posted on by charlie

Link: TANKERx – Thoughts, Meditations and Brain Dumps: SMARTPHONE: The Difference Between Cool and Brill!.

Take, for example, my favourite piece of software at the moment, Nokia Lifeblog. I don’t have to do or know anything about my Smartphone to use it. I take my photos or videos, plug in the phone and there they are, on my PC, organised in a TimeLine with the messages that I have sent and received presenting me with a virtual account of my day! I mean, that’s just brill! It’s not efficient, it doesn’t make me work any better, quicker or quieter – it just does what it does, complimenting the way I do things (just look at my Moblog), enabling me to be who I am and not what I need to be to make it work.

Announcements

Where I will be tomorrow – Blogger-Treffen Berlin

Posted on by charlie

Thanks to Marius for pointing out that I am some sort of panelist at the blogger meeting in Berlin tomorrow. I thought I was just going to lurk about. Nope. Sneaky Heiko and Loïc are making me sing for my snacks.

Link: Blogger-Treffen Berlin.

2 Vortr�ge stehen bis jetzt fest:

1. Dr. Thorsten Wichmann: �bersicht �ber Entwicklung von Weblogs in Deutschland
2. Charlie Schick (Nokia): Vorstellung des Konzepts der LifeBlog-Software von Nokia

You can get more info here.

Announcements

Erik Thauvin’s LifeBlogger app updated

Posted on by charlie

What?

LifeBlogger allows you to post your Nokia Lifeblog favorites to your blog.

Your images, text notes and videos can now be effortlessly posted to your blog using FTP (Blogger, etc.) or via the MetaWeblog API (Movable Type, Radio UserLand, etc.) [More…]

Link: LifeBlogger.

I haven’t used this in a while, since I use TypePad, so no problem blogging from Lifeblog 1.5. But it should be nice for those who use other blogging providers or those who think we are trying to build a proprietary protocol for blogging and rule the universe (bwahahaha!).

Let me know how it works.

And, way to go Erik.

Tips & Tricks

Lifeblog mobile blog settings

Posted on by charlie
Under the Options menu, go to Settings
Under the Options menu, go to Settings
Select Weblog Settings
Select Weblog Settings


The Username is your blog username, the Password is your blog password (case sensitive, usually)
The Username is your blog username, the Password is your blog password (case sensitive, usually)
The server address is actually what Lifeblog uses to communicate via Atom, the protocol it uses to post to the blog server. In this case, the server address is the TypePad Atom entry point. In the near future, we hope to list a few other blogs that you can post to.
The server address is actually what Lifeblog uses to communicate via Atom, the protocol it uses to post to the blog server. In this case, the server address is the TypePad Atom entry point. In the near future, we hope to list a few other blogs that you can post to.


Info on the Internet acess point is in the next image. But, while I am here, the Optimise image resuces the size of the image for upload. You could send the full size image, but it'll just take longer.
Info on the Internet acess point is in the next image. But, while I am here, the Optimise image reduces the size of the image for upload. You could send the full size image, but it would just take longer.
For the Internet access point, use the open internet access point on your phone, not the WAP or MMS access point.
For the Internet access point, use the open internet access point on your phone, not the WAP or MMS access point.



In case you are wondering how to make your blog settings in Lifeblog mobile (and on the Lifeblog PC). Lifeblog currently is compatible with the Nokia 7610, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6670, and Nokia 6260. The only blog service that is compatible right now with Lifeblog is Six Apart’s TypePad weblogging service.

Musings

Commercial bloggers – a new cottage industry?

Posted on by charlie

I’ve had the good fortune to spend some quality time with Loïc Le Meur in Madrid, and will be spending some more time with him next week in Paris and Berlin.

It’s fascinating to listen to him talk about blogs. Each time, he seems to pull up another fascinating example of what folks are doing with blogs. Of course, many of the examples are French, but that’s not the point. I think his examples point to the creativity people have with their own blogs.

He pointed out two, this last time in Madrid and it struck me that people are figuring out ways to use their blogs as commercial tools.

The bead-trotter webjournal belongs to a talented craftswoman who makes really cool jewelry. The interesting thing is that she has used the basic photo album on the blog to show her creations and sell them via Pay Pal. Go check it out.

Another one Loïc talked about was La Fraise, run by a guy who is nuts about printed t-shirts. The blog gets an amazing number of comments. He uses a photo album to show designs and get feedback. People can even submit their own design, in true community fashion. Go see for yourself.

But, the key thing that struck me when I saw these sites is that blogs have become true tools for a new kind of cottage industry. Sure, we’ve had individual online stores for many years now, but the stores and the sites related to them were not interactive. Here, we see folks interacting with their customers in a way not possible without such ease of use.

What also struck me is that 5 years ago, when I worked for myself and hadn’t given my brain and energy to a large corporation, I was struggling to build elements of an interactive website that would allow me to publish and sell and interact with visitors to a high degree and so on. I am almost sure that if I had a blog then, I would be doing something entirely different from what I do now. If I had a blog then, I would likely have been doing something along the line what these folks have done: an easy to update blog, with good interaction with the customers, and an easy way to offer my products.

Sigh.