Social Weapon of Choice For Political Operatives: Twitter

Twitter has grown up.  Not long ago, it was a way to tell your friends when you were going to the bathroom and what you were thinking while you sat on the toilet.  Then it became instrumental in helping people of North Africa get rid of a couple of dictators.  And now, Twitter is the weapon of choice for political machines, specifically, the operatives who are looking to slash their way socially to get their messages and mud across.

Here is a prime example.  In an exchange between David Axelrod (Twitter), the man who is widely credited by the media for getting then Senator Barack Obama into the White House (I know Oprah would beg to differ) and Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom (Twitter), the two got personal and traded jabs.

There more of this at the Washington Post piece.  Something about dogs mixed in with dogs and debates.  It's really quite interesting because, even now, Twitter is a vehicle for influencing the greater voting public because the media and the campaigns are picking up on this.

I'm considering creating just a separate Twitter account just to aggregate these political tweets because the Twitter may be where the winner of the November elections is decided.

And you know what else might be a cool Twitter.  A rap-off, or Twitter-off, between opposing rappers.  I can see it now as they fiercely tap on the smartphones.

T-Mobile's First Leather Clad Carly - Schwing!

Source:  Tmo-News.

Here's T-Mobile's first new look at Carly.

Does it make you wanna give T-Mobile a second chance or make a switch from another carrier?  No but it does make for a very interesting pivot by T-Mobile.  I wish them and Carly the best.  We need more competition, not less.

Perhaps, the new Carly will have a bigger impact with she uses the iPhone 5 this fall?

Carly Gets Leather And Catches Nick Fury Cooking At Home

Source: From Dave the Mobile Sage who sent me the link to Macstories.

It’s spring so it makes sense that people do some cleaning as they come out from under the winter days.  It’s the same for companies.  In this instance, it’s Apple and T-Mobile.  Both are seeking to do something different from what they’ve done in recent years and so far, I’m liking T-Mobile’s rebranding better.  However, Apple is playing on its strength – Siri.

Here, let’s start with T-Mobile.  This is the old Carly.  Me like. Girl I wanna marry.

This is the new Carly.  Me like even more!  Schwing!

Now here are Apple’s ads.  The first one features my other girl, Zooey D.  The second one features Nick Fury himself, aka Samuel L Jackson.

It’s nothing earth shattering but you get what Apple is playing on – the strength of Siri.  And while T-Mobile’s new Carly look may have Kate Beckinsale, my other girl, worry that there is a new Selene to continue Underworld series if she ever decides retire her leather outfits(which I hope she won’t), T-Mobile appealing to the 16-year old in me isn't likely going to sell a lot of devices.

I rather have T-Mobile show me what Android can do for me.  We know Samsung has already taken to doing commercials that try to connect users to their devices.  I think that works better.  But hey, if T-Mobile wanna push more Carly in leather at me, go for it!

iPhone With LTE and Heat

My iPhone 4 with Verizon gets warm at times. It's nothing I have not seen before in other mobile devices and certainly no where near laptop heat or even close to the non-issue temperature on the new iPad that the media tried to create into "heat-gate". Still, I have concerns for the next iPhone.

And that concern comes from the likelihood that the next iPhone will have an LTE antenna in it. And given Apple's drive to make its iOS devices lighter and thinner, heat concerns, even if it's not a real issue, will certainly bare more scrutiny than any other devices because it's the iPhone.

And that's before we even get into the battery life issue. My hope is that Apple brings back the ability for users to toggle between LTE and lower speed wireless options.

It could help with the heat issue and solve any battery issues we mobile users may be faced with.

Right now, as I am composing this post, I am in an area with low signal and the iPhone could be struggling to maintain the signal strength. Hence, I am draining the battery faster and the device has gotten warmer as well.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Apple Should Punish AT&T But Won't

I like for Apple to find a way to punish AT&T.  It's not likely to ever happen.  Apple does what it does which is to make the damn best device it can.  It doesn't spend a lot of time worry about what Google, Microsoft, or the carriers will do.  However, for AT&T to try to push Lumia 900 over the iPhone after Apple's iconic device revolutionized the wireless industry and gave AT&T years of profit, it simply doesn't sit well with me.

However, Apple probably won't.  However, Apple can continue to come out with the best damn iPhone it can make.  Cook, Ives, and the rest of the designers and developers can continue to build the best damn device they can and continue to dominate the smartphone sales over at AT&T and charge them the premium that the iPhone commands.

If Apple does exact any kind of punishment, it's likely through services and the iOS ecosystem that continues to make carriers irrelevant.  I don't know what future devices and services Apple is working on but I figure it'll try to expand into other services, maybe even more video options and expand on iTunes music services like Match.

By expanding and strengthening its ecosystem, Apple will continue to make the iOS devices even more important in our lives.  Maybe, that'll be punishment enough against AT&T.

Did AT&T Force Microsoft To Bring LTE To Lumia 900 For US or For Themselves?

I was running a couple of errands and listening to a Windows Phone podcast.  It was a good podcast in general because the folks running it are very good and I like the information they provide. The kinds of folks you'd wanna have a beer with.

The podcast is from WP Central.  I recommend it if you're even remotely interested in keeping up with what Microsoft is offering on the mobile front.  Having said that, in one of the episodes, they commended AT&T for bring LTE to Windows Phone.  They liked that AT&T convinced Microsoft to make this happen.

Maybe they did but they certainly deserved no praise.  AT&T, even by the podcasters' own admission, never have subscribers' interest at heart.  They don't take in your or my interests when they make any decision whatsoever.

Windows Phone was AT&T's final and only chance to break away from the domination of the iPhone.  Plain and simple.  The Lumia 900, the latest and greatest of Windows Phone devices, was suppose to supplant the iPhone 4S as the flagship device.  And bring LTE over just isn't going to make that happen.

Apple should include LTE in the next iPhone 5-6 months from now and any advantage that AT&T was pushing for in Windows Phone would disappear by then.

If the podcasters want to give AT&T praise for bring LTE to Windows Phone, then they should also blame AT&T for the wireless data issues that Lumia 900 users are currently experimenting, no?

Mobile Tip: Tricks To Read Behind Pay-Walls On WSJ, LA Times, And FT (Might Work With Others Too)

Note: This isn't really just a mobile tip because it also works on desktop browsers as well.

Paid walls are going up left and right.  It’s getting ugly out there.  Frankly, I don’t mind it so much because there is still a lot of content out there.  Having said that, it is irk-some when you click through and you cannot access the page without paying.  It’s free-enterprise.  We as mobile readers, or desktop ones, will just have to accept this.  However, it doesn’t totally mean that just because we’re not willing to pay for content, say on the WSJ or the LA Times, that we cannot access here.  Here are a couple of tips that might help.

Let’s go with the WSJ.  See the following pic?

Annoying but manageable.  Simply copy and paste the title of the article and search it in Google and you’ve got this.  The whole enchilada.  Awesome, isn’t it?  Don’t free too badly for News Corp.  Vast majority of their readership pays.  I’m sure like myself, you only read a couple of these articles a month. Hence, it doesn’t justify paying hundreds of an annual subscription.

And if the search option doesn't exactly work for some sites, here’s another option that may or may not work with some papers online.  It doesn’t work with the WSJ but it does with the LA Times.  Get an Instapaper account.  It’s free.  It’s an excellent service you want anyway.  What Instapaper does is allows you to bookmark the text of a post for reading later.  It’s got two tools that you’ll want in your browser bookmark.

One is “Reader Later” and “Instapaper Text”.

Simply go to the LA Times article you want and click on either.  As you can see here, the pay-wall does not even allow a preview of the post.

So be it.  Now go to your Instapaper options. “Reader Later” obviously saves the post for your reading later if you wanna read it at a coffee shop or hit “Instapaper Text” and you get taken to another page with mostly the text of the post, without the trimmings.  Let's say you hit "Instapaper Text", now, you can see the whole article and just the text too.  Even better.

Awesome, isn't it?

How about other pay-walls like the NY Times or Financial Times?  I haven’t hit any limits on the NY Times yet.  Ever.  However, FT isn’t playing ball. Sometimes, doing a search like we can do with WSJ works, Other times, it doesn’t.

Then there’s always the trick of trying to clear your browser data and hope that the paper you wanna read isn’t up-and-up on this trick and you can reload on the number of views allowable by the paper.  And if you really really want to know what’s going on, I’d go search the topic and find probably dozens of other links to other news sources that have not put up a pay-wall.

We are still far from the days when every bit on the Internet will be locked up to those of us unable or unwilling to pay for access.  Again, not saying pay-wall is bad.  I think it’s good if the site provides value beyond what they had previously offered for free.