General

Screen Capture Update Available

July 6, 2009 by Marc

If you’re using our free Screen Capture utility for Windows Mobile , we just released an update to it. The main goal was to bring the UI up to date with the latest version of the Windows Mobile OS. We also made a few tweaks to fix a couple bugs we found, and we gave it a new icon (woo hoo!) Yes, I know the MS Paint style icon we had before was super retro cool, but we figured it was time.

For those of you new to the application, Screen Capture is a free utility for Windows Mobile. We first built it as an internal utility back in the days when there weren’t any screen capture apps. After sending it to a couple folks for support purposes (“Can you do a screen capture of that error message?”) we found that people liked it. We decided we’d share it.

You can find the free download of Screen Capture here!

A Snail Mail Story

July 1, 2009 by Ellen

Someone here - and I won’t name names - forgot to pick up our physical mail for a few weeks. Like 12. And none of us noticed.

If we’d done this years ago, we’d be in trouble. Our phones would have been turned off, as well as our internet, and we’d have racked up some serious late charges on the credit cards, if not had them cancelled as well.

But since we’ve been moving more and more of our bills to electronic only, it turns out that ignoring our paper mail for over two months wasn’t a big deal. Macworld sent a few testy “reminders” about our bill, and at least a few of us now have bigger than usual piles of stuff to read, but the only real problem was that Marc had ordered some live tadpoles to be sent here, and by the time we found them, they weren’t live anymore.

Sorry guys.

But it pointed out very clearly how unimportant physical mail has become. I wonder how long daily delivery will hang on.

eWallet for iPhone OS 3.0 is Out!

June 29, 2009 by Marc

Good news! It only took three weeks (ack!) but the eWallet update is approved! The point of the update was to tweak a few things that cropped up after 3.0 was released. As you probably know, Apple is retesting every app under 3.0 so we wanted to make sure that there were no problems. Even the things we did fix are so minor I bet most folks never would have seen them (like a funky keyboard appearance where is popped up instead of slid up with animation.)

Oh - and since it will surely come up - yes, we have plans underway to include some of the new 3.0 OS features in eWallet. As some of you already know, I am not a fan of predicting release dates but suffice it to say there will be updates that embrace 3.0 in the future!

If you already own eWallet you can get it through the usual Application Upgrade process on your phone or in iTunes. If you don’t own eWallet yet, you definitely want to get a copy! It’s a fantastic application! You can check it out here.

1 Million Apps = 7 Free Apps per Person

June 25, 2009 by Marc

I’m glad Palm is giving the Pre everything they’ve got but I gotta tell you, I’m a little worried. Current estimates place the sales at around 150K units sold. Not bad, but that’s around 1/2 of what the original iPhone did in two days two years ago. (Although it’s pretty close to the Android sales numbers.) meanwhile, the SDK still isn’t out, and the hints we’ve seen of it suggests that we could face some pretty powerful development limits.

The latest announcement of a million downloads is nice and all, but considering the apps are free, that means each of the 150K users have downloaded 7 free apps. The most impressive thing about this is that Palm is actually doing a pretty darn good job of convincing the tech blog sites that this is a big deal.

To put this in perspective, Apple has over 2,700,000 downloads each DAY for the past year*. And many of these are paid apps.

It might be hard to believe but really, I DO want Palm to succeed at this. I’m just disappointed because I’m just not feeling confident that they will. I’d LOVE to see another strong handheld in the market - it’s good for business! I just feel like maybe we’re seeing more of the same problems that have plagued the company for the past few years.

\* To address something I am sure will come up, reports indicated that Apple sold 2.2 Million apps (free AND paid) during their release weekend so the overall average isn’t far off.

Desperate Marketing

June 23, 2009 by Marc

 There are certain marketing techniques that just scream desperation. They move the retailer from “dignified and disappointed” to “creepy stalker.” It’s something that could happen to any retailer, us included, in tough economic times. When times get tough people start tossing around all sorts of ideas, searching for something - anything- to change their fortunes. Fortunately, I like to think we’ve avoided this so far, but I ran across one painful example of this yesterday.

Read on after the jump for the whole story…

So I visited a software reseller and after I closed the window, this little gem popped up:

Let me just run down all the things that I see as wrong with this:

1. It abandons all sense of dignity and professionalism. Just picture if you were at a brick and mortar store, and as you left the sales person chased you out into the parking lot begging for you to come back in.
2. It offers me a discount that wasn’t offered when I was shopping initially! This doesn’t make me excited - it ticks me off. I mean, I came to the store planning to spend money - this tells me that folks who are loyal to the company get suckered into paying full price and folks that could give a crap get special treatment. Call me crazy, but I see that as the opposite of how things should get run.
3. It’s a pop-up! EVERYONE hates pop-ups. What is worse, it’s a pop-up designed to bypass both Goggle and IE pop-up managers. When I left the retailer’s site its because I didn’t want to shop there any longer. Shoving a pop-up in my face is not the way to convince me to come back.
4. The body language portrayed in the image tells me one of two things: either this person who I don’t know is trying to grab me, or they are pushing me away. Both of these messages cause me to recoil from the ad.

Yep, it’s a sad state of affairs. Once proud software resellers are being reduced to the type of advertising gimmicks previously reserved for bottom of the line webcams, discount furniture stores, and adult sites.

Fortunately, things are going well enough for us that we haven’t even had to think this way, but if that day comes I hope we can approach the challenge with a bit more dignity that some sites.

eWallet for BlackBerry Update

June 22, 2009 by Marc

I’m excited to announced that we just released a new version of eWallet for BlackBerry with our good friends over at WebIS. This latest release is a free upgrade for current eWallet for BlackBerry customers. It addresses a few minor bugs but also adds a number of great features.

UPDATE: This upgrade will change the version of both the eWallet sync add-in for Blackberry Desktop Manager, and the Blackberry version, to 6.1.4.3416. The desktop eWallet does not change - it will stay at 6.1.3.24746.

One of my favorite features is the updated UI with focus on the touch interface of the BlackBerry Storm. Here’s a screenshot showing a little of what this new version has to offer:

Other features include:

• A new Quick Search that makes it easy to find the info you’re looking for.
• Easier first time synching so that new users can get synching faster.
• Support for landscape mode.
• Improved scroll speeds, category behavior, and more.

If you are an existing BlackBerry user you definitely want this upgrade. We’ll be notifying all BlackBerry users soon and will provide you with download links!