Bye Bye iCards

With the launch of fancy new MobileMe service, Apple has essentially and quietly killed the free e-cards service that has been my favorite since 2001. It used to be available at www.apple.com/icards

I used to use the service heavily, thanks to good taste in choice of images, nice and fast UI, and the ability to use it without any kind of log-in.

Now it seems like "this public beach has been bought and now members-only"... a pity and a move that makes me hostile to me.com. I am not becoming a member, also because I remember the free iTools that Steve told us "will stay with you forever".

"The best things in life are free"

Apple seems as aggressive with it's market moves as Microsoft's .NET - but in a very closed nature.
I honestly believe we should not fully land in the hands of yet another monopoly.
But with all the news about Linux approach to the desktop - where else a humble end-user should go to get the best experience?

And I know it's not only Con Kolivas, I have a hacker friend who quit this also because of egotism in Linux community.

So, for a while, I will stay with the Mac as my home machine - but keep on looking...

Blue Phone for the Elite

This time, I want to share my joy.
While it's only a part of my user experience, Macs had and will always be (hopefully) taking some 'warm place' in my heart.
But there used to be some 'gotchas' for an advanced Symbian smartphone users like me.
There are simply no PC Suites at all, neither from Nokia, nor from Ericsson, not from other UIQ/S60 licensees as far as I know.
Well, "good riddance", I can hear you mac users say. "What's not there you don't need (only want?)" Not quite so.
It's only that the most "painful points" are closed on Mac, with the help of iSync and the Modem Scripting for GPRS.

(I should note here that iSync is able to reconcile all your devices in one go, be it Palm and 2-3 phones plus add .Mac account - all those sources will have the same data after you sync them in a single pass, just press one button.)

But the third most "painful" point for us 12-button peddlers is, of course, the text input.
Now, I don't know about you, but I hate T9. It works (kinda) but then again in my N95 half of the times I use it - it has wrong Input Language, and it's not easy to switch between the keyboard layouts.
Think of trying to enter some Russian in Nokia Maps - and your default input is English.
It takes a serious trouble to travel all the way to the Phone Personalization and back. Sometimes I just give up and curse.
On another note, entering contact names should not have T9 on by default.
There are many use cases like those... but we diverged.

Anyway you look at, typing on your Mac is much faster than on your phone.
So there you have - the need for some "serious" messaging application, right on your Mac where you have "the digital hub" (sorry Nokia, the "multimedia computers" are mostly "for the geek of us").


And BluePhoneElite delivers!




I should confess I've had a "long-term relationship" with this program before I could make my fairly weighted judgement and present it to your attention. This envolved seeng it develop, helping it develop, filing all kinds of suggestions, trouble shooting etc.
The good part about that the now you don't have to bear through all this.
The products is ready. And I highly recommend it. This is what many PC Users dream of - but for Mac Users only.
No bloat, pure meat. Yet very extendable and it has plug-ins and scripting.

The functionality of this product differs a lot from the Nokia offering.


First of all, it's an online product. You don't have to press buttons to "Refresh" the list of SMS, calls etc.
You have the freshest view as long as your bluetooth connection to phone is not broken.....

Secondly, it's a multivendor offering. You can have many phone from many manufacturers connected and working at the same time. When you want to send a message, simply select the right phone from the drop-down list.

It's like iSync - no matter what your hardware, you'll have the best features available.
And no need to put tons of bloat from every phone maker. (Heh, good part about this rant is that Nokia does not yet produce "bloat" for Macs)
Thirdly, you have the calling functionality thru your Mac!
You can use Mac's headset (or speakers/iSight mic) to do voice calls.
Just like Skype, only really via GSM/CDMA.


Once you get an incoming call, a nice window pops up, with the number, name and the contact's picture from your Mac's Address Book. Incoming Text messages are also popping up, giving you options to Reply of Forward them.
There is a nice capability to enter text notes for each voice call, made or received. You can type during the call as well as after the call.
The only pieces missing are MMS support and there are some minor UI "misconceptions", like the Device Folder grouping in Message Center, or showing all the same Recent Calls in every phone's context menu.
Those can be easily adapted to, and if there are enough user requests, I believe it also can be changed.
I personally believe that the future of this program's UI is adding back the unified calls+messages centre, but per each phone, so it would not have the current Mac-centric view, where every known call or message is shown on all and every phone. Add the invocation of those by double-clicking the phone's icon and I'm done!

My experience also shows that the developer support is exceptional! I usually got friendly responses for every of my e-mail within just a few days. As a small company, Mirasoftware does it's best at providing meaningful answers, support and bug-fixes. A bugfix within a week - I would like Nokia to try and match that!

A very nice touch is that they always provide an exact bug-fix list with every release. For those who like to see what changed, it's indispensable.

Another nice feature is reading the phone book directly from the phone when you address a message or a call, and no, you don't have to hit "Refresh" to get the newest version. As long as you have connection, BluePhoneElite2 has the synced version in cache.

The product costs 25 USD and is well worth the money. A time-limited trials are available for you to make sure you have the features supported. Sending a support request even during a trial is no problem, and there are all the chances that (in rare case of issues) you'll get the bug-fix and will have the "green light" to buy.

And so did I !

N.B. N95 is fully and perfectly supported.

ICQ denies older protocols

News of the day - today ICQ started denying older versions of it's protocols to be used.
This will inevitably break compatibility of many "3rd party" clients, but only for the good.

It's double fun for me, because only last month I sent "goodbye & see you on Skype" notes to all my ICQ contacts, citing many technical problems and low level of innovation which plagued the system for 7 straight years now.
I remember using video chat with Yahoo! IM back in 2001, and with this competing service there never was a missed character due to full international encodings support via UTF, much unlike among a multitude of clients on ICQ using different versions of protocols to connect and causing havoc trying to properly decode "code-page based" messages.
With ICQ, there never was a working video/audio connection, thanks to weak firewall/proxy support and to the need of direct connection.
File Transfers worked day in, day out.
Very annoying were "holes" in protocols, which allowed other clients unsolicited access to your real status.
E.g. one could see if I am really "Offline" or if I am, indeed, in an "Invisible" mode.
Many exploits existed to get the password of some notorious accounts (mostly 5-digit, and "beautiful" numbers).
It was also possible (protocols up to v8) to see the remote party's external IP, and learn geo position from that.
There was also a nice hack which allowed to delete yourself from the remote party's Buddy List, with no confirmation/acknowledgment needed at all.
Add the king of headache, Spam, to that, and you'll get the picture WHY.
Despite some efforts put into bringing all client to a common, compatible level, ICQ have not gone far enough, probably for the fear of alienating it's customers.

Could the actions today mean that the customers are fleeing away, and there's a need and the order "to do something about it"?
And just think of where they all are fleeing to?

With this new move - denying older protocols to be used, and enforcing only the new one, AOL is bravely stepping into the world of security and compatibility. Hopefully.
Every "serious" client app will probably be upgraded very soon.

Anyhow, thank you AOL, but I will stay out once I stepped out.
Nice move, though. If only a little bit sooner.

NB. A related post here.