BillDay.com

• Wordpress turns 5 today, wow! http://tinyurl.com/5j57pr #
• Good recommendations on proper design for mobile users http://tinyurl.com/67fwsx #

• Wired article on Apple-as-rulebreaker: http://tinyurl.com/2suf22 #
• Most interesting bit of the Wired Apple cover story: “‘We have cells, like a terrorist organization,’ Jon Rubinstein, former head of Apple’s hardware and iPod divisions” #
• Details of Wordpress 2.5 "Brecker" release: http://tinyurl.com/2pcto3 #
• I’m very, VERY glad I’m not flying through Heathrow much these days: http://tinyurl.com/35ywz4 #

• Amazon.com Availability Zones: http://tinyurl.com/2ybok5 #

• Decent introduction to the Comet architecture, very useful for event-driven Web apps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_(programming) #
• Comet Daily post by Andrew Betts on overcomplexity http://tinyurl.com/2vjbog #

Ouch, not how you want to launch your beta:

Read more about NotchUp from TechCrunch.

• Twittering comes of age for political reporting http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/technology/21link.html #
• First time I’ve read the term "Hardware as a Service"…HaaS, anyone? http://tinyurl.com/yul32q #
• DreamHost billing issues have been a headache; hopefully they really are resolved http://tinyurl.com/yo2zpd #
• Facebook taps users to translate site http://tinyurl.com/2×83t9 (tip o’ the hat to Michael @ TechCrunch) #
• My friend Jason Hunter’s doing some very cool things at MarkLogic http://tinyurl.com/2ba2dd #
• Jonathan Schwartz’s blog post on how the Sun-MySQL purchase came together http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/in_a_vortex #

• Yearly backup time is necessary, but no fun..maybe redundant, offsite hard drives are in order for 2008? #
• @guykawasaki, my fav sports site is obvious, but very useful: http://sports.yahoo.com #
• Make has outdone itself with Graffiti Research Lab Vienna: Laser tagging buildings http://tinyurl.com/2537tl #

I find Twitter and ShareThis useful, and I’m finally getting around to adding direct support to my site for both of them.

Today I’ve installed the Twitter Tools and ShareThis Wordpress plugins on BillDay.com.

You now have the option to follow my thoughts and notes via Twitter directly if you want to read each item as I post it. Alternatively, you can just continue reading my site feed to see a single, daily digest of my tweets. If you want the lower volume option, stay here; if you want to drink from the firehose, go there. Choose one or both, whatever you prefer.

You can also use the new ShareThis link at the bottom of my posts to share them via your favorite social sites and email, as you like. Enjoy!

Russ Beattie’s excellent “Personal SMS Business Cards via TextMarks” post inspired me to create my own text-able biz card.

To get my contact info (email, cell, and Web), text the keyword ‘BILLDAY‘ to TextMarks at shortcode 41411. This service only works in the US at this point, but I’ll update my blog for other shortcodes if/when TextMark supports international marks.

As Russ notes in his post, there are a number of interesting viral possibilities with this service. Create your own mark and you can receive the cell number of anyone texting that mark to the service, and more importantly if the requester chooses to subscribe to your mark they’ll automatically receive any future mobile updates from you straight to their cell. Add a widget (see mine in the right gutter) and you can enable people to request info and subscribe to your mark via their Web browser. More information on using marks including commands and a simulator are available from the TextMarks Help page and if you want to dig deeper into integrating your mark into your own site and services, TextMarks even offers a developer API.

You also have the option of using TextMark’s Reactee to create a wearable teaser tee (see tshirt at right). Reactee even has an “Expose Me” Facebook application which you can use to share your mark and info with Facebook friends, too. (If you’re interested in ordering a Reactee tshirt, be sure you search for coupon codes; you can save as much as 20% depending on which ones are still valid as you read this.)

Great idea for a personal mobile business card, thanks Russ! Yet another tool to use as you build “The Brand Called You” (or a product brand, your company, a favorite cause, political position, etc.).

Google has introduced YouTube video ad units and I thought I’d try them out to see how well they target their content to my site.

Here’s my first video ad. To start with it appears that GooTube merely links to YouTube’s latest videos from the text “Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com”. It’ll be interesting to see how fast and how well this improves to properly target the content of my site.

Other changes I’m making while I’m at it:

• Changed my site search to use Google AdSense for Search and moved the search block up closer to top of page
• Simplified BillDay.com and Flickr feeds to one each
• Removed WAP support, Bloglines and My Yahoo subscribe feeds/buttons from blog sidebar (nobody’s using them, so they’re gone)
• Trying out Google Analytics to see if it adds enough beyond my current package to continue using it

Let me know what you think.

The BillDay.com discussion forums experiment mentioned here has failed.

They’ve only proven popular with spammers. As such, I have removed them.

If you’d like to discuss anything on my site, please leave a comment on my blog.

Apple has launched their official site for iPhone.

Their splash image gives you a better feel for size and layout:

Discuss iPhone in the BillDay.com forums.

The speculation and rumors and leaks were basically right:

Steve Jobs has announced the Apple iPhone. (Click here to discuss in the BillDay.com iPhone forum)

• Touch screen tech known as “multi-touch”, uses your finger, almost entire front of device is screen
• 3.5 inch 480 x 320 widescreen, 160ppi
• 11.6mm thick, “thinner than the Q and the BlackJack, all of them” says Jobs
• Syncs music, movies, and more with iTunes
• 8GB ($599USD with 2 year Cingular contract) and 4GB ($499 with 2yr) versions
• 2 megapixel cellcam built-in
• Top: 3.5mm headset jack, SIM tray, and a sleep-wake switch
• Bottom: Speaker, mic input, and an iPod connector
• Proximity sensor (knows when you bring it to your ear)
• Ambient light sensor (dims and brightens screen as needed, saves power)
• Accelerometer (switches automatically between landscape and portrait as you rotate iPhone)
• Quad-band GSM+EDGE, WiFi (b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP
• Automatically detects and switches to WiFi from EDGE when it finds a hotspot
• Safari for Web browsing, full HTML support (Jobs cites Google Maps as an example)
• IMAP and POP3 email
• Jobs notes “Yahoo will offer free push-IMAP email to iPhone customers. This isn’t just IMAP, this is push-email, same as a BlackBerry.”
• Runs OS X (this apparently drew cheers from the MacWorld attendees)
• 5 hours battery life for calls or video, 16 hours for music playback
• Slated for US in Q2 2007, Europe in Q4 2007, and Asia in 2008

Discuss here. More deets to come. More images from the keynote below.

[Tip o' the hat to Engadget's keynote coverage]

C. Enrique Ortiz has noted my new discussion forums and rebranding of the “Java ME Archive” in his Mobility blog.

Thanks for the note!

I have added discussion forums to my site.

I opted to do this to enable a more free flowing discussion than my previous, moderated Y! Groups lists allowed. This change also enables new features such as private messages between community members without requiring them to necessarily make their email addresses publicly visible. Go to BillDay.com/discuss to join the conversation.

Current forums include:

• Java ME forum - Discuss the Java Platform, Micro Edition and related Java technology and wireless development topics (supercedes my former Y! J2ME Archive discussion list)
• Flash Lite forum - For Flash Lite and related SVG-T and wireless development discussions
• Server Tech - If the bits execute in a server somewhere besides the mobile device, discuss them here
• Mobile Jobs - Companies with wireless and mobile development related jobs post descriptions of open positions here (supercedes my former Y! Mobile Jobs discussion list)

I am also taking this opportunity to rename my archive to be the “Java ME Archive” to reflect the rebranding of “J2ME” as “Java ME”. As a part of this re-launch of sorts, I have made a number of updates and edits to the (now) Java ME Archive so that it contains the latest links to tools and information for mobile Java and related wireless development.

I may add additional forums over time as community interest reveals demand for them. Please let me know what you think about the new forums or if you’d like to see something added.

I’m a big digg fan. (No, not that one, this one.)

Like a moth to a flame, I’m captivated by the real-time view of what’s being dugg by the world digger community. Most of the stories that the community pops to the top (”Recently Popular” in digg speak) are worth a read, especially for tech heads like me.

I’m a big enough fan, in fact, to do something I’ve so far resisted doing with other social networking sites: I’ve added “digg this” links to the bottom of my blog entries. Fellow diggers, digg on!

Only 3 spams have made it through while Akismet killed 3755 in the last twenty-four hours.

I am very impressed!

I’ve upgraded my WordPress install using DreamHost’s fab-o upgrader. Nothing broke during the upgrade, which was a two step process: Run DreamHost’s upgrader, then run the WordPress database upgrader et voila, done!

As a part of my upgrade, I activated the Akismet comment and trackback spam killer plugin bundled with WP. So far, I love it! Akismet’s throttled back an ongoing spam attack from several messages per second to one spam in the last three hours. Talk about an improvement!

The newest WP+Akismet are highly recommended for anyone considering the upgrade.

Given the number of click-throughs I’m seeing in my Google AdSense reports, context specific ads seem to be useful for many site visitors.

To that end, I’ve decided to also offer Google link units at the bottom of each blog post including the first post on my homepage. These link units allow you to pull up a list of ads for one of several topics related to the content of the particular blog entry.

I’m watching to see if link units are also the subjects of click-through love and will decide whether to keep them after a few weeks have elapsed.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, let me know what you think.

To the new style blockquotes I’ve been trying out since I upgraded WP:

You haven’t grown on me. I’m switching back. See ya.