Using Gmail on the iPhone

Using Gmail on the iPhone is a huge headache, especially if you receive a lot of email in your Gmail account. I was looking for a better way and found some great instructions on CatCubed for using Gmail through an IMAP server. Full instructions can be found on the CatCubed site, but here's a brief recap for my readers.

You'll need to start with three things:

1. An iPhone (...)
2. A Gmail account
3. An ISP or host that supports IMAP (I used 1and1, which hosts this page)

Steps:

1. Create an e-mail account on your ISP or host. You can give this account any name you want - it's not a publicly facing address. For example, mail@domain.com.
   
2. Set up a filter in Gmail to forward all mail to your mail@domain.com address, and auto-archive (skip the inbox)
3. Set up your iPhone to receive e-mail from the mail@domain.com IMAP server and send mail through smtp.gmail.com - your Gmail account will continue to be your outward facing e-mail address
4. Set up Mail (OS X) or the e-mail application of your choosing to do the same. This can be done in multiple locations. For example, I have Mail set up at home and Outlook set up at work.

What happens:

Gmail will continue to filter spam and store all messages, so there's a central archive, but when you delete an email in Outlook, Mail or on the iPhone, it's reflected in all places. IMAP servers store the status of the message on the server, POP stores it in the application that particular e-mail was downloaded to. This way, you don't need to archive messages in Gmail, on your iPhone and in any other application you may use to gather mail - everything is synced!

Again, more details can be found on the CatCubed site here.

Broken iPhone Screen

Well... that didn't take long. I picked up my phone this morning and the screen was almost entirely shattered. Don't know how it happened, but I'm in the Apple store now getting a replacement. They were great about it - even transfered my contacts over so I would have them before my next sync at home. The new one wasn't charged though, so now I'm just hanging out in the Apple store, waiting for a charge. Fun.

Metric Tonight

No, I'm not switching to the metric system, but I will be seeing Metric at Webster Hall tonight.

Depending on the vibe, I may do a repeat of the Interpol / Facebook live picture posting experiment. I have to say, it went over rather well with the Interpol show, but the phone doesn't really take the best pictures.

I've been told by David Hembree that Metric puts on a great show so, I'm excited about that (usually, David is hardly ever sort of sometimes wrong).

Morning Headaches

Getting to work today was a pain in the ass. Northbound 6 trains were shut down. Why, you ask? Green goo.

Edit: The story I linked to above has been updated to include the cause of this "green goo."

Environmental officials were called to the scene, and police removed what they thought was the suspicious substance.

Police said later the discovery turned out to be an empty cigar box.

What The Hell, Dan?

Dan Rather is suing CBS for a cool $70 Mil. Boo. Hoo. Dan. Rather. Get over it.

Fortune Agrees With Me

I've said before that I don't think MySpace is going anywhere partly because it's so very different from Facebook. MySpace = content, Facebook = software. Fortune agrees.

Comparing MySpace and Facebook is inevitable because of their dominance in the business, but their differences are profound.

Facebook is intended to be used only to connect you to the people you already know offline; it's a "utility," to use the preferred label of its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Its user interface is clean and tidy, and the whole vibe is efficiency and getting things done.

MySpace, on the other hand, is a mishmash of modern media - rich with music and video and comedy. It's like a rock & roll club - chaotic, loud, and packed. Many user profiles are florid and flamboyant, with flashing text and music that starts playing as soon as you arrive.

"We're focused on helping people express themselves and do the connection and discovery game," says Steve Pearman, one of Anderson's top deputies in designing the service. "If you want pink blinking text on a black background, who am I to say it's wrong?"

At MySpace you can befriend not only anybody but anything. A dog can have a profile, and so can AT&T. This looseness has powerful effects, very different from anything on Facebook. MySpace became the de facto home page for the music industry because its members could befriend bands. Any brand, political candidate, nonprofit, even government, can create a profile and start adding friends.

Consumer Electronics Convergence Shows Continued Promise

eMarketer released some numbers today via ABI Research which, frankly, surprised me. 89.4% US household penetration for personal computers, but only 82.1% for cellphones. It got me thinking about what the overlaps are here.

I have an iPhone which I consider to be my cellphone, digital camera, portable media player, USB hard drive, portable video game device and even personal computer. Just in my small corner of Brooklyn there is/are two people, one desktop computer, four laptops, two iPhones, four 'regular' cellphones, two LCD HDTVs, one digital video recorder, one video game console, two DVD players, one printer, several USB hard drives, two routers, several digital cameras and lots of network attached storage. (Please don't come rob me. I also have 17 pitbulls.)

So what's left? I suppose I'm still in the market for an HD DVD player, though I don't plan on getting on anytime soon. I don't need GPS, as most of us don't drive in NYC and the subways tend not to stray from their given course. Satellite radio, I think, is a waste of money, especially with so many computers laying around, ready to stream all the Internet radio you can handle.

I guess that settles it then. Market opportunities in "Select Consumer Electronics Devices" are in convergence. Apple's tapping the cellphone + portable media player market with noted success, despite the fact that portable media player penetration is only at 36.4%. HDTV's got a ways to go and will likely continue to grow for several years, but I think they would be better off integrating with more successful products, like personal computers and DVD players. HD DVD won't really take off until prices fall and a standard is chosen.

What do you think?

High-give To Urban Dictionary

In exciting dictionary news, my definition of high-give, a Jennifer Brown-coined term, has made it into the Urban Dictionary. Go give it a thumbs-up.

This is nearly as exciting as when I dugg a story that made the front page of Digg.

Music Downtown

Anyone going to Music Downtown?

I'd like to go tonight and see Illinois, but I can't find anyone willing to go last minute. It's sad... all of my friends are getting old. They work too hard. Either way, I'm going tomorrow. So hit me up if you want to come.

According to Facebook, this is the top music in New York:


Come out and let's change that.

RSS Reader

At home I use NewsFire on my Mac and I love it. It's easy to use, it looks good and it's not stupid. At work, I use Attensa integrated into Outlook. They call it a River of News. Cute. It sucks.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RSS reader for Windows that doesn't look like hell and act out like a red-headed step child? Anyone!?

Morning Notes

I ran across a few cool things this morning that I wanted to share.

Outside.in provides super-local aggregation. I've always wanted to find a source of news for my little corner of Brooklyn, but I didn't want to read everything, everyday on blogs like Gothamist. Using Outside.in I can enter my zip code and get a news feed pertaining only to items in Bay Ridge. Even better, I can subscribe to an RSS feed. Super cool - I love it.

Blogger Play is a Google service which is, simply, a photo stream of pictures people are uploading to their Blogger blog. It's a time-suck, but you see some interesting photos you wouldn't have otherwise. Plus, if you see something you like just click on it and it takes you to the original post.

Cat Power & Interpol

Well, the show Friday night was pretty great. I didn't even know she was playing, but was surprised nicely with Cat Power opening up for Interpol.

I'm fairly sure that I'm completely in love with her. Interpol was great too:

My friends thought I was being a huge dork, but it's worth noting that uploading live pictures to my Facebook profile went very smoothly. Overall a positive and easy experience. I would really love to see connectivity on my actual digital camera. Quick, remote uploads are great, but obviously quality suffers.

Interpol Tonight

I'll be seeing Interpol tonight at the garden, right up front in the pit. If we're Facebook friends, keep an eye out - I plan on posting live mobile pictures during the show. Well, assuming that I have signal and that it won't be too dark for the iPhone's crappy camera.

We'll see.

Actually, No. I Don't Love Joost.

You can get to this site via a few URL's. Tellmeyes.com used to be a site with my art - paintings and the like - Andrewbaisley.com is obviously the main URL, but you can also get here via ILoveJoost.com.

ILoveJoost.com was registered mostly as a joke between friends. I don't take serious issue with Joost. The idea is right, the funding is there, the employees are great, but really, who the heck watches TV on their computer?

Joost isn't stupid. They know a computer screen doesn't compare to a television screen and I'm sure it's something they're working on (I'm not just assuming, mind you). Until this problem is solved, however, they're going to have a hard time gaining much traction.

Aap!Steps Uglify Escalators

I have to say, I think this is a great idea, but damn, who knew you could make an escalator any nastier?

So what's next? Any more unused space out there?

Via AdRants.

Last.fm Let Me Down

Did I tell anyone that I got an iPhone? Oh, I did? I wasn't sure if you'd heard. Well, I did. I got an iPhone.

Last.fm: why don't you scrobble plays from my iPhone? What is to become of my Last.fm profile? The widget in my sidebar?

No high-give to you, Last.fm.

Social Networks: How Much Is Too Much?

I read a lot of industry news everyday and the one thing I read about more than anything (because I simply can't avoid it) is social networks. If they're not announcing a new social network they're announcing that they're hiring programmers to help build a social network. So, I started to wonder, how many social networks are out there?

Turns out: a lot. Here's Wikipedia's list. It's important to note that this list does not extrapolate on smaller networks within sites like Ning and is probably missing quite a few. So, I started to wonder, how many social networks are too many?

Turns out: I have no idea. That's a tough question to answer. Heck, even Vampire Freaks, the social networks for goths, has a purported 1M+ members. So are social networks doing the same thing that newspapers figured out how to do a long time ago? Localize?

Newspapers survive because they create content relevant to their local readers. According to eMarketer local online advertising spending in 2006 was $2.1B, in 2007 it's on track to be $2.9B and they are projecting $7.8B by 2011.

My belief is, if advertisers are spending money in a sector, that sector is working. The same trend is found in social networks. People with a particular interest are drawn to social networks that cater to that interest.

So, maybe the question shouldn't be how many social networks are too many, but how many special interests exist? Turns out: it's probably quite a few.

Giving In

I suppose I've been giving in a lot lately. I caved on the iPhone and now, after jumping off my high horse, I've caved on Facebook. Yes, I now use Facebook. Feel free to look me up.

I gave up on MySpace several months ago, citing the horrible design and completely overbearing ads. MySpace isn't really in trouble because of Facebook and, while they may loose a number of users to Facebook, I don't think they're going away anytime soon. They may be in trouble, however, if they don't start cleaning up their act when it comes to user experience.

People have told me over and over that the user experience on Facebook is a dream. That it's smart, easy and intuitive. I didn't really buy it until I started using it. It's awesome. They built this entire platform with us, the users, in mind. It really is nice. And, to be honest, I don't mind the occasional sponsored post in my news feed. Nor do I mind Facebook's move to include profiles in Google (et al) search results. Isn't the point of a social network for people to be able to find you?

I firmly believe that MySpace will continue, for a long time, to be a major player in social networking. They have one thing that FaceBook doesn't currently have and that's an uncommon friendliness to advertisers. As long as there are celebrity and movie and band and book and other product profiles people who are interested in those products will stick around. Period.

Used correctly advertisers can create campaigns that are highly targeted to the "short tail." Their key customers, the ones who really care about their product, will continue to patronize MySpace landing pages. It's not for me, but people have proven time after time that they respond to professionally created campaigns. That's not going to just go away.

So, high-give to Facebook. High-give to MySpace. And damn, seriously, high-give to the iPhone.

I Did It

I finally broke down and got the iPhone. Actually, I'm posting this very message from the phone. I'll update on my thoughts once I've had some more time with it.

50 Ringtones

According to Engadget, Apple is going to give all current iPhone owners a $100 Apple gift card. This is to make up for the fact that Apple announced yesterday it would be dropping the price by $200. Smart move by Apple - get those pissed iPhone fanboys to stop complaining and have them give you the money right back when they buy 50 ringtones.