Unified Me : Digital Lifestyle

The Minbar for Applications

Sean Olson — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:21:19 GMT

Perhaps I'm getting spoiled, but I've gotten used to some basic features in any application I used nowadays and I'm really surprised by any new application that doesn't have these:

Automatic, in-place upgrades: why make the user work so hard to see your hard work?
Dock to systray: no app is so important that I shouldn't be able to get some screen real estate back when I need it
E-mail invitations: if I'm excited about your app, make it easy for me to share that excitement
Roam my data: preferences, settings, etc. I have more than one machine. So do a lot of folks. Make it easy to keep those in sync
Connect to my data: don't make me re-enter stuff that's already in obvious places like Facebook, Yahoo/GMail/Hotmail, etc. If I have to build one more list of "friends" ...
Don't ever ever lose my data: wow, this still happens waay too often

d Home Let's get this party started

Sean Olson — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:27:50 GMT

Awesome. Twitter meets INSTEON in the strangest combination of technology to-date. Check out the particulars here: http://www.vimeo.com/1025711?pg=embed&sec=1025711

If you thought that was strange, check out this: SIP for Light Bulbs Using SIP to Support Communication with Networked

I have to admit, I'm pretty intrigued myself about the possibilities especially if you were brave enough to publish your Twitter account for this.

Chumby, oh how I love thee...

Sean Olson — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:01:15 GMT

Great set of videos on how folks use their Chumby over at YouTube. I'm still working out how to hack together a simple intercom system using my Chumby and Windows Live Messenger. In the meantime, I'm going to use a text based system via Twitter. Very easy to do and amazingly useful. In a nutshell, my chumby is a alternate sidebar display which I can stream just about anything to and I don't have to have my laptop nearby.

Technorati Tags: Chumby

Chumbilicious

Sean Olson — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:33:26 GMT

I finally broke down and purchased a Chumby in basic black. It was a tough decision .... I mean, it runs embedded Linux after all :O.. I managed to rationalize it to myself by saying I needed a new alarm clock. Not entirely true since my current alarm clock is just fine but I guess we all have our own vices. The potential of this device is huge in my opinion and I can't wait for it to arrive and start customizing it. If you haven't seen or heard about this device yet, take a look at their overview or hop on over to their blog. Now if I could only get Mono running on this ... ;-)

Technorati tags: Chumby