ShoZu Adds MMS Capabilities

ShoZu has now added the ability to upload your photos or videos to up to 30 multiple destinations with one single MMS. This is great if you upload to several sites such as Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Kodak EasyShare, MySpace, etc. Taking advantage of the new capabilities couldn’t be simpler. You simply set up the list of preferred services or destinations. From there, any picture or video you send to go@m.shozu.com is automatically delivered to ShoZu’s servers and then forwarded to your preferred destinations.

I’ve always enjoyed ShoZu on my S60 devices but my current device is the iPhone so this is welcome news to me. I have been emailing pictures to Flickr but now I can simply send one email and the picture will get forwarded to several sites. Great and it saves me time!

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (November 20, 2007) – Do you want to send the latest snapshot from your camera phone to your Flickr album, Facebook page, personal blog and best friend’s email simultaneously without creating multiple messages for every photo or video clip as well as paying for each upload? ShoZu Inc. today announced a new picture messaging/MMS service offering this mass publishing ability for every media-enabled handset, bringing its core technology and industry-leading integration with 30 social media sites to every phone for the first time.

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Jaiku+Google

Well, well, well….the surprise of the day for me is when I received an email announcing Jaiku had been acquired by Google. I don’t think anyone saw this coming (at least not as quickly) and the Jaiku people kept it pretty quiet. Big congrats are in order for the people at Jaiku for all their hard work and innovative service.

Jaiku is by far my favorite SoNet right now and the one I use more than any other.

From the official release:

Exciting news: Google has bought Jaiku today.

What does that mean? First and foremost, we’re of course continuing to support our existing users. So fear not: your Jaiku phone, the Web site, IM, SMS, and API will continue to work normally.

That said, new user sign-ups have been limited for the time being. The idea here is to enable our team to get right to work with Google’s engineers on delivering a new, better service to you as quickly as we can instead of spending our efforts on optimizing the current back-end. Existing users will still be able to invite their friends, and those who are not yet on Jaiku can send us a request for an invitation to join.

Jaiku Beta Photos

Jaiku Beta Photos

Originally uploaded by admartinezjr

Jaiku has a new private Beta of their S60 client. The new one includes support for photos. It is great and allows me to see thumbnails of the photo feeds and comment on them right on my S60 device. How cool is that!!

Kudos to the Jaiku team for continuing to develop the S60 mobile client and adding new features.

Things I Do With My S60 Device

I love my Nokia E61i, that’s no secret. So I thought “heck, why not write a post about the things that I use my E61i for?” Well, that’s exactly what this post is about: a simple list of the things that I do on my device. Oh, and did I say I love the S60 Symbian platform? 🙂

1. Push Email with Mail4Exchange. I use Cortado (I wrote about it here). Push email and support for attachments.

2. VOIP calling with Gizmo. I use voip occasionally to call internationally (maybe two or three times a month). I also use Fring for Skype calling.

3. Instant Messaging. Using Gizmo IM at the moment which supports AIM, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger. I also have Fring installed on the device for GTalk.

4. Jaiku. One of my favorite things to do. Jaiku is a Web 2.0 social network with a nifty S60 application.

5. Full Browsing Experience. Using either S60 browser or Opera Mini (my favorite), I can view full HTML pages, not just crappy WAP pages.

6. Google Maps. Sure, it’s not GPS but I love it and it has come in handy so many times for me. Simply love it!

7. Documents. I can view and edit Word and Excel documents and view PowerPoint slides using QuickOffice, which came loaded on the device.

8. Podcasts. I subscribe, download and listen to my favorite podcasts right on my phone using Nokia’s Podcasting application.

9. E-Books. Using MobiReader I can read all kinds of e-books. I do realize that not everyone likes to read e-books on such small screens but it works for me. I have read entire books on this and other devices.

10. Games. Truth be told, I don’t play too many games but I can play the occasional game, such as GolfPro Contest 🙂

This is just some of the things I do with my device. I also take pictures (2MP camera – not the greatest) and upload them to Flickr using ShoZu; take occasional videos and listen to music. The E61i is WiFi enabled and has been an awesome device filled with great features.

 

PressDisplay Now On All Macs

A little while back, I wrote about PressDisplay and its availability for the iPhone. Well, I just received word from Gayle Moss at Newspaper Direct that the service is now available for all Macs using the Safari browser, which of course includes the iPhone and the newly announced iPod Touch.

PressDisplay can now be accessed on all Macs (and on iPhones and the iPod Touch) with the Safari browser. So now you can view many of your fave newspapers right in the palm of your hand. Even newspapers from other countries. (A complete list of over 500 newspapers can be viewed at PressDisplay.com.)

And not just pale imitations of these newspapers, either. PressDisplay.com offers exact replicas of these newspapers, with smart navigation that takes you from the end of a column to its continuation on another page (for example). You can email an article, or insert it into your blog and add your commentary. You can translate articles on the fly or listen to them. There’s also a Monitors feature that notifies you whenever a keyword is mentioned in any of the newspapers in the PressDisplay.com system. And for those who like to download, disconnect and go, there is a beta release available of the PressReader for the Mac as well.

It’s just like having the print edition, only with a whole lot more going for it and no messy newsprint fingers. Check out a couple of short videos that show you how it all works on the MAC and iPhone.

As a bonus…new users can register using offer code Safari and get 1 month FREE unlimited access. Give it a try – I think you’ll really like it!

FREE to try for a month, nothing to lose.  Below is a video demonstration of the service on the iPhone.

S60 Browser vs. Opera Mini

We all know about Opera Mini (now on Beta 2) and its powerful features. Honestly, since I wrote about the Opera Mini Beta release, one big letdown for me was that it was a RAM killer on my N80. With the release of Beta 2, I decided to try Opera again (this time on my current phone, Nokia E61i).

I did a quick comparison on the go between the S60 browser and Opera Mini to see which one would take more RAM from my device and to my surprise Opera Mini came out on top. Now, this is my own personal experience and is not by any means the result of any serious benchmark tests. I used the New York Times website for my test. In the screenshots below you can see how the available RAM is affected by each browser.

Started with 19.7MB of available RAM

NYTimes.com on S60 Browser

6.9MB RAM Left (S60 Browser)

NYTimes.com on Opera Mini

9.9MB RAM Left (Opera Mini)

The difference was 3MB, not much but certainly RAM that can be used to run other apps. I guess it I had a significant amount of memory on my E61i, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, until then….I want to squeeze as much RAM as I can possible can 🙂

Jaiku 0.80 Released To Public

A couple of days ago, I wrote about Jaiku and the then soon-to-be-release private beta for S60 handsets. On Friday, the Jaiku team released the client to the general public. It can be downloaded from here.

I encouraged anyone to download and use this mobile client. I had the priviledge of being part of the private beta program and can tell you that I am a Jaiku addict now. I can’t see myself without it 🙂

The Jaiku team has done a tremendous job with the development of this client. Big kudos to them!!

Jaiku: Your Conversation

With so many social networks popping out on a daily basis it seems, it is hard to find one that fits all your needs and likes. Personally, I have found a home with Jaiku. I have to admit that I was initially shy about presence/microblogging sites such as Jaiku but I am so glad that I decided to give it a try.

Some of the things that make Jaiku enjoyable are the way in which the posts and conversations are streamlined and the threaded comments on posts. Additionally, you can also have your own feeds added to your updates. There is also a soon-to-be released S60 application for which I have had the priviledge of participating in the private beta.

Zach at Symbian in Motion has a great write up on the S60 application. Head over to his blog and read all about it.

Nokia Wants You To MOSH

Nokia’s MOSH or Mobilize and Share is a social network in its Beta stages right now. The service allows mobile phone users to collect and share content (pictures, ringtones, videos, docs, games, and applications). You can sign up at http://mosh.nokia.com. When prompted for a password, enter ALLACCESS.

From their website:

What exactly is MOSH?

MOSH is a content sharing site where community members upload, distribute and manage content to be viewed and enjoyed on mobile devices. With MOSH, anything from applications like mobile games, to videos, blogs, songs or photos are now accessible and distributable on your mobile device.

There is also an S60 app that you can install on your S60 device. I have already installed the application on my E61i. You can download it from http://mosh.nokia.mobi/start right from the S60 browser.

S60 Browser Shortcut: Duh!

Sometimes we find tips and shortcuts in the most casual and unusual of situations. In my case, while reading an entry on the S60 Devices blog about a new E61i theme, I stumbled upon a comment made by a reader (Lehmann) after observing that the theme had the S60 browser icon in the Standby Screen. Lehmann suggested to just use the shortcut “Press and hold 0” to access the browser and therefore free up one valuable icon space that could be used for another application.

Now, I say duh! because I don’t know how I didn’t think of doing this before. I mean, I have used this shortcut before in other S60 devices and even a Sony Ericsson device but for some reason I have had the S60 browser occupying an icon space on my standby screen. Thanks to Lehmann, now I can use that space for some other application.