Wow!

My biggest concern when I bought this phone was how it would compare the iPhone. I didn’t want to be taking a step backward in terms of usability and features. I shouldn’t have worried though; this phone is superb.

The open nature is a breath of fresh air. I didn’t need iTunes to set it up or add music. I can install any apps I want. Nothing is locked down and its a genuine UK phone that costs half that of buying a new iPhone here! I wont even comment on the build quality as it is one of the most solid devices I have ever used. It was literally thrown across the kitchen tiles (by accident, not a test!) and there is not a single mark on it.

Other than killing the battery one morning after experimenting with email syncing on an account that didn’t exist, there have been no major problems. The slideout keyboard could be a little bigger, but that’s solved by the touchscreen! I’m not sure what the D-pad is for yet… perhaps the NES simulator? The usb socket is not the same as any of my cables so I am limited to the one supplied at the moment, I have the docks on order but they are currently out of stock. These are all minor gripes that could be equalled twice over with iPhone related annoyances. If this phone receives the Android 2.1 upgrade, as per the Nexus One, it will be hard to beat.

I’m so impressed up to this point that the next Apple phone would have to be something very special to entice me back… of course, that is what they do best!

Apps

As with any phone these days, it is only as useful as the apps you have installed. After setting up Google Checkout, purchases from the Market are super simple (Though I only have 1 paid-for app). In addition to some notable Apps such as Goggles, My Tracks and a barcode scanner, I have installed the following to date with no problems.

wpToGo

I use WordPress a lot, this app does exactly what it says on the tin! Mobile blogging!

Photoshop

With a 5MP camera, some editing is required. Photoshop Mobile fits the bill!

Seesmic

Being a devoted Twitter user, I have currently settled on Seesmic as the tweet tool of choice. This space is constantly changing so it will be interesting to see the developments.

Trip Journal

This is a trip tracking, photo linking note taking app for when you are out an about. This is the first app I purchased as I wanted the full version. It is also available on iPhone but with Multitasking, I can listen to music and use the phone without losing my track!

runstar

This is a slick app still under heavy development. I dont get out running much, but if I do, I’ll be running with this app… and music… and twitter (I am quite happy with this multitasking thing)!

Camera

I used the iPhone camera a lot, especially for Flickr/Twitter type shots. The Milestone has a 5MP camera that has had a lot of pixel-peepers stating why they wouldn’t trade in their SLR’s for one. Luckiliy, I use the camera for snap-shots and was not looking for a prosumer camera (would be cool though) and I have found that the camera delivers exactly what it needs to do. The image below was taken in contrasting light, click it to see the full version from Flickr!

Conclusion

I have so far concluded that I like the freedom provided by the Android platform. I have found the apps I needed to match what I did on the iPhone, sure there are only 16,000 to choose from not 100,000 but to be honest, I only need about 10! Essentially, after a few weeks, I don’t regret the decision to switch phones, if anything changes, I’ll note it here. Now I need to write my App!

Apple builds a lot of products, all of which have a focus on offering a good user experience. Any Apple product works right out of the box and, in most cases, will be a pleasure to use. I have recently discovered that it’s not just physical products that have this focus. Even their support is designed to offer a good experience; enjoyable even!

Over the past couple of months, my Macbook Pro had been shutting off when using battery power. It didn’t matter what the computer was doing. If you pulled the power, within a mminute or two, it would switch off. As I was in the vicinity of an Apple store, we headed in to the Genius Bar to see what they could tell me. After some tests and a night trying to get my RAM out, they replaced my battery free of charge, even though the machine itself was no longer under warranty.

This is what Apple did right to keep me a very happy customer;

When suits you
To save you time and guarantee and appointment, Apple provide the means to reserve a slot. You can either go into your local store or use the booking facility on the store’s page. I went into WestQuay and made my appointment in-store.

What’s happening?
If you are standing in the store whilst they check your problem, they keep you informed about what they can see and potential causes. It is also possible to use the website to track the progress of your repair if the product needs to be left in their hands.

Did you see that?
When at the Genius Bar, they do the work in front of your eyes. Many companies will take your product to a secret workshop out of sight. When the Genius is working, you can see what they are up to. This also allows for conversation which may ultimately help identify the issue.

Ability and knowledge
The Apple staff, right from the sales people to the technical support are highly trained and knowledgeable. They really show that they love the products and believe in what they do. Compared with most of the tech/computer stores I often visit, this is a huge breath of fresh air. There is nothing worse than asking for advice and immediately knowing that the person has no idea what you mean – or what day it is!

Do what is right
There seems to be an element of freedom in how the Genius bar staff handle issues. My laptop was out of warranty and it would have been acceptable for them to acknowledge the problem and have me pay the exchange value for a new battery. In the end, the Genius said that he could see this was clearly a faulty item and, because I had done everything reasonable to fix the problem, he would replace the item for free. That is service!

Apple take the right approach to business. Sure, there is some bad press about how tightly they control things, but, in the end, it is the same control that allows them to offer the reliable products and services that they do. This experience has only bolstered my (current) positive view of the company and I really hope they keep it up.

It’s chock full of great advice covering everything from motivation itself to tips on time management and productivity. It teaches you to learn from your mistakes and move forward no matter what! If you ever feel things seem to get away from you, this e-book may be just what you need!

Priced at just $14.95 the potential return is huge.

What does the book cover? Here is the considerable table of contents.

1. How To Motivate Yourself
2. The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever Need
3. A Guide to Beating the Fears That Are Holding You Back
4. Task Ninja: Form the Action Habit
5. Top 20 Motivation Hacks
6. The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal
7. Progress, Progress, Progress! 5 Tips To Keep You Moving Forward
8. 7 Steps to Turn Your Self-Improvement Desires Into Reality
9. 25 Killer Actions to Boost Your Self-Confidence
10. 6 Small Things You Can Do When You Lack Discipline
11. 16 Ways to Motivate Yourself When You’re in a Slump
12. 5 Tips For Motivational Recovery
13. The Magical Power of Focus
14. 10 Ways to Beat the “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” Syndrome
15. 30 Incredible Places to Turn When You Need Inspiration
16. How To Deal With Negative Feedback
17. How to Doggedly Pursue Your Dreams in the Face of Naysayers
18. Achieve Your Dreams Despite Pressures of Work and Family
19. Why You Should Celebrate Your Mistakes
20. How to Actually Execute Your To-do List
21. The Yin And Yang Of Persistence
22. Enduring the Valley to Get to Success
23. How To Relax And Why It’s So Important
24. The Simple Guide To Single-Tasking Success
25. Stop Reading About It and Do It

As with everything from Leo at Zen Habits, this will be a great resource and is definitely worth a read.

Check out more details here on Leo’s site.

Moleskines have been mentioned on this site before, check out the post for my take on the famous notebooks as this post is slightly different. For any of you fans out there, Moleskine have launched a really cool web service, Moleskine MSK.

The service is currently in Beta and there are some bugs that need ironing out; nonetheless, it has some very cool ideas.

The Wizard lets you add a picture and text in various layouts to a page which you then print and put in your Moleskine book. There are a few preset layouts as you can see in the image above. See below for an API example of the wizard in action!

The Contacts feature enables you to upload a list of contacts from Outlook, Plaxo or even your phone if you can get the .msk or .vcf files out. You can then print these pages out with a lot of options on what information to show.

The most complete element is the Events tool. It is also the one that generated errors when I tried to generate the final page. It will take a calendar file so you can print it out for your Moleskine. There are a lot of options available on what information will be printed.

There is also a basic API in the works, to demonstrate, you can generate a Moleskine page for the original OSL Moleskine post by clicking here. This leads me to the idea of having a ‘Generate Moleskine page’ option on every blog post. This sort of thing would be quite cool! Some work was required to edit out funny characters and all the text had to be on one line; but if they continue to develop it… would be a novel option to have available.

These features may not turn your trusty Moleskine into a Kindle but they will make it just a little bit more techy! In real life, I doubt there will be too much use for these features as there will not be enough room in the books. It will be very useful for printing off a months calendar of list of contacts periodically though. In theory, you could use the wizard feature to make your own Moleskine… would require a lot of cutting out though. Unless you can find a way to print on the Moleskine pages directly that is!

Somehow, I manage to get through a lot of books! This is quite amazing when you consider that I only read when I go to bed or when I am travelling. To give you some idea of what I have read in the last couple of months (In addition to coursework books, magazines and blogs!), check out the list below!

Anathem

By Neal Stephenson. A very big book with a very big story. Totally different to my expectations and I would probably read it again some day!

ABOUT:Here is another brilliantly original novel from the cult author of “Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon”.Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, unpredictable “saecular” world, an endless landscape of casinos and megastores that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, dark ages and renaissances, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a higher power, driven by fear, decides it is only these cloistered scholars who have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one by one, Raz and his friends, mentors, and teachers are summoned forth without warning into the unknown.

Chris Ryan’s SAS Fitness book

By Chris Ryan. This is now the bible for my gym and fitness training… excellent!

ABOUT:Chris Ryan has reached peak physical condition. After years of intensive training by experts in the SAS he has learnt to attain a level of total fitness that improves his performance in all aspects of life. Now he has adapted techniques and honed his routines to devise a three-month programme that’s both extremely easy and effective for males of all ages and lifestyles. He combines endurance training and work-outs for strength and suppleness with a guide to nutrition and all-round health maintenance for men. All the exercises will be photographed in full colour in this easy-to-follow guide. He also provides training programmes for longer and shorter timescales, specifically aimed at weight loss or weight gain, in addition to giving nutritional advice from the experts to maximise the success of the exercise plans.

Mission: Survival – Way of the Wolf

By Bear Grylls. This turned out to be for a younger audience. Having read Harry Potter, I thought I would give this is a go! I read it in two days but honestly think it has more useful information than the wizard books!

ABOUT: Stranded in Alaska! Beck Granger and his anthropologist uncle are on their way to visit Anakat Village, home to one of the native peoples of Alaska, when their tiny plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness. With his uncle badly injured and the plane way off its original flight path, Beck realises he can’t wait around for rescue. He needs to get help – and fast! Together with his new friend, Tikaani, Beck sets off through bear country and up towards the mountains that block his way to civilisation. Can Beck keep himself and Tikaani alive as they ford a dangerous river, find food to keep their strength up and dig a snow cave in which to weather an ice storm? A tense and exciting struggle for survival with real survival details and gruesome tips!

Mondo Enduro

By The lads. This book just about discribes the way I would do it!

ABOUT:“Mondo Enduro” is not your typical account of an around-the-world motorcycling adventure. In 1995, seven young British chaps set off from London on Suzuki DR350s for a journey that would take them across Europe and Asia to the far eastern edge of Siberia, then from Anchorage to Santiago, Chile, followed by South Africa back home to London. They called themselves Mondo Enduro and this book is the trip log they kept throughout their journey. With all members of the team contributing daily entries, each taking a different day, the writing is fresh and immediate, and full of wonderfully understated British humor. What sets this group apart from many long-distance travelers is their unpretentiousness, their refreshingly low-tech approach, their gusto and their marvelous upbeat attitude. Their little successes become triumphs, their setbacks are just aggravations, today’s scenery or tonight’s tasty meal is the best yet. They marvel at people calling their journey an epic undertaking when to them it’s just a year-long holiday. Their limited finances mandate a very frugal lifestyle on the road, one of ‘self-catering’ and ‘rough campsites’. By not taking the normal hotel and restaurant mode of travel, they meet a wide range of characters, and are continually impressed with the generosity that people around the world extended to them as perfect strangers. However, the flip and casual veneer of “Mondo Enduro” belies the inner strength of the team members as they meet and surmount several extraordinary challenges that come their way.

Career Renegade

By Jonathan Fields. For someone that is approaching the end of their current job, this book was perfectly timed! There are some great ideas and plenty of common sense in here.

ABOUT: For all the corporate drones who feel drained and devalued by their jobs and long to pursue their passions, Fields, a high-powered attorney turned successful entrepreneur, offers a motivational and practical guide to starting your own business. The author tells his own story of corporate disillusionment and physical deterioration (capped by a stress-exacerbated heart attack, which he interpreted as his body literally rejecting his career) to a new life as a fitness entrepreneur. Fields moves beyond self-help rhetoric to proffer helpful, no-nonsense steps for aspiring business owners, acknowledging that career renegades must not only identify their own secret passion but must also translate it into a profitable and sustainable enterprise. In addition to sharing inspirational career renegade cases studies, such as Liv’s Story, in which a frustrated artist discovers a profitable niche decorating custom cakes, Fields provides pragmatic strategies for creating a realistic business plan, exploiting technology and employing affordable guerilla marketing. While the author does not spend much time addressing the financial risks, chances of failure or enormous commitment of personal energy and resources involved in entrepreneurship, he does provide an engaging firsthand look at the rewards in doing what you love for a living.

4-Hour Work Week

By Tim Ferris. In a similar vein to the above… I have been looking for inspiration and ideas on how to move on in my career. I really like some of Tim’s ideas though they require some adaptation to be relevant. Definitey worth reading if productivity and lifestyle are of interest.

ABOUT: Tim Ferriss has trouble defining what he does for a living. Depending on when you ask this controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer: ‘I race motorcycles in Europe’, ‘I ski in the Andes’, ‘I scuba dive in Panama’, ‘I dance tango in Buenos Aires’. He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the ‘New Rich’, a fast-growing subculture that has abandoned the ‘deferred-life plan’ and instead mastered the new currencies – time and mobility – to create a new way of living. Why wait a lifetime for your retirement when you can enjoy luxury now? Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing first class world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with no management, or just living more and working less, this book is the blueprint.Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you: how to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want; how blue chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs; how to eliminate 50 per cent of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist; how exchange your career for life for short work bursts and frequent ‘mini-retirements’; how to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it’s beyond repair; how to cultivate selective ignorance – and create time – with a low-information diet; how to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50-80 per cent off; how to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office; and learn about this and more to live the life you want – now.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

By J.K. Rowling. For the record, I didn’t buy this book- I found it on the bookshelves and read it!

ABOUT: Offering the trademark wit and imagination familiar to Rowling’s legions of readers–as well as Aesop’s wisdom and the occasional darkness of the Brothers Grimm–each of these five tales reveals a lesson befitting children and parents alike: the strength gained with a trusted friendship, the redemptive power of love, and the true magic that exists in the hearts of all of us. Rowling’s new introduction also comments on the personal lessons she has taken from the Tales, noting that the characters in Beedle’s collection “take their fates into their own hands, rather than taking a prolonged nap or waiting for someone to return a lost shoe,” and “that magic causes as much trouble as it cures.”

Moleskine notebooks are classically cool! You may have heard the name before as their popularity seems to be constantly growing. I should probably point out that they are not actually covered in a mole’s skin, it is a hard wearing synthetic ‘Moleskine’. There is some history involved as Picasso and Hemingway are reputed to have used Moleskine books, though I believe they were quite different to the modern versions we have today!

The books have a high quality feel to them, the paper especially is very smooth. They all have an elastic band to hold them closed, a ribbon bookmark and an expandable pocket inside the back cover. One of the features that really make these books usable is the sewn spine that allows you to lie it flat on the desk providing access to the whole sheet.

The product range is quite wide and includes note books, sketch books, reporter books, diaries and even city break planners. A look at this page will give you an overview of what is available. My personal favourites are the standard lined notebooks. I keep one with my photography kit and use a separate one for lists and notes. A lot of people use them with a productivity systems such as;

• GTD (Moleskine hack) – The well known popular productivity system.
• Todoodlist – This is excellent… I use it all the time now and recommend you take a look!
• Autofocus system – A new contender that sounds very promising.

Moleskines have a following of devoted fans, check out these photos from flickr, you can see the variety of ways in which people actually use their notebooks.