Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica gives the most in-depth breakdown of Apple's iOS 4 I've found on the web today.

Ars reviews iOS 4: what's new, notable, and what needs work: "Despite its flaws, the iOS 4 update is certainly a solid one with enough new features to make it worth upgrading for pretty much everyone. Trying to live without even the most basic aspects of multitasking (notably state-saving) can be frustrating once you have used it for a while—during the time I wrote this, I continually switched back and forth between an iOS 4 phone and an iPhone OS 3.x phone, so I know from experience."

If you're upgrading it really is worth your read. I've certainly picked up a few good tips from the post.

Last October, I made a post saying that I was "bringing back home" all of my scattered data around the web to have more focus on this as my homesite.

As I mentioned earlier, I have been blogging regularly on samharrelson.me. I’ve also had my email hosted through an @gmail.com address, have been reading feeds through Google Reader, keeping my calendar on a free @gmail Google Calendar, keeping my documents dispersed through that associated Google Docs account as well as my Dropbox account, precious family photos on Flickr, Facebook, Posterous, Picasa and SmugMug and notes on Evernote.

That initiative lasted a solid month or two but then things fell apart. Here I am trying the same process again. This time I mean it (seriously). - I've moved my blogs (this one and adverb.fm) to a self-hosted account with BlueHost. Now that I have my OpenID setup with my domain (so I can sign in to comment or access apps just by typing in "http://www.samharrelson.com" without having to have a slew of logins and passwords), it's a win-win. - Like last time, I've primarily been using the sam@samharrelson.com email address lately. I still have my sam@adverb.fm account for adverb, my advertising blog and my school email (hosted by Google Apps) for school communications. But everything personal is going through that @samharrelson.com address and it's independently hosted (not through Google). Sure, I miss the Google Mail interface, but I've always loved Apple Mail's functionality (esp for high volume email), so that wasn't too painful. I actually enjoy being free of the Google chain there. I might run this mail through MobileMe's new interface, but not sure. I like SquirrelMail too much :) And if there's any problem with sending mail through Apple Mail, I've always got Loa Power Tools. - Speaking of being free of Google, I've also moved my calendars to iCal/MobileMe. This is incredibly painless since I have a Macbook Pro, an iPad and an iPhone. Being beholden to MobileMe rather than Google gives me a little more independence while still keeping things synced up across the board. - I'm back on OmniFocus for getting things done. Again, not difficult given the built-in sync via MobileMe and my predisposition for Apple products. - Documents-wise, I'm keeping most things in Pages/Numbers/Keynote via MobileMe so that I can have access on my Mac, iPhone or iPad relatively easily. I'm also keeping everything backed up via Dropbox and Amazon S3 via Jungle Disk. - I do most of my feed reading via the awesome Reeder app on the iPad and iPhone. On my Macbook I'm using NetNewsWire, but I rarely read feeds on the Mac anymore. The iPad is just an insanely good reading device, especially with Reeder. Of course, I also use Instapaper and Delicious when I have time to dig deeper. - Socially, I still use Twitter as my main conduit. Having been on the service for almost four years now, I find it just as useful and revolutionary today as I did back in 2006. I've pretty much moved off of Facebook but still keep a profile (with limited info) there just as a) a pointer and b) a way for friends and students to connect. I'll echo what I said last October:

I love the social web and the incredible apps that have come along these last five years. However, I also love my independence. There’s something to the “Coral Reef” idea that Dave Winer spoke of in regard to Twitter a couple of years back that appeals to me in terms of net identity. I like to think of samharrelson.com as my digital coral reef that provides the biosphere and anchor for all the species of web apps that make up my online content ecosystem. That’s the hope here.

That's still my sentiment. I'm loving not being chained to a Google account or another third party service for my digital coral reef. This time I'm planning on making that sentiment stick.

I finally got around to installing Gowalla on my iPhone (since Asheville isn't cool enough to be a trendy FourSquare city yet).  

 

I'm in absolute love with WriteRoom on the iPhone. I'm not really sure how I ever got along without this app.

In just a month or so, it has rocketed it's way onto my iPhone's prestigious first page of apps and solidly found a place in my work/thinkflow. Being able to quickly jot down todo's, compose posts, compile ideas and have them automagically sync up to the web in a fairly secure format makes me glad to have an iPhone (a feeling that comes and goes these days).

Since my school laptop is locked down and I can't install any apps, I rely a great deal on the mobile and web experience. WriteRoom is a great workaround for me on so many levels.

So, thank you, WriteRoom.  You rock.

Just needed to share that.

I have a school issued (white) MacBook 13' that I've been using the last few weeks when I need a computer (besides my iPhone). It's great that we have MacBooks for teachers and students. However, since we are also transitioning to Google Apps (thankfully) and everything I do is mostly cloud-based, I don't see much of the shiny Mac OSX operating system.

Instead, this is what I see and use as my main operating system (Firefox).

I've fallen in love with Pinboard (for bookmarking) and Simplenote (search for it on the iPhone app store) this week. I've been testing out both services for a little while but decided to take the plunge this week and use them more heavily.

And they rock.

Pinboard is Delicious from 2004 with more goodness baked in. It's fast, easy and private.  That's right... in an age of rival-bookmarker Diigo's communities, Evernote offering sharing of notebooks as a Premium feature and RememberTheMilk touting their social features, I'm finding myself leaning back towards sites like Pinboard that take advantage of the web2.0 goodness with a nod towards those of us who want to bookmark without worrying about what the neighbors might think (not that I'm bookmarking anything scandalous, but I don't have to worry about crossing the education/tech/marketing/science/music streams with Pinboard). 

Simplenote does exactly what I want a note taking app to do... it takes notes quickly, easily and syncs automagically. I love Evernote, but I've found myself overwhlemed there as of late since there are so many features (and since I do have so much data there).  Simplenote is... well, simple. And that's refreshing.  The same with Pinboard vs Diigo. I love Diigo, but I honestly don't make use of all their community and bookmarking features enough to pledge allegiance. 

So, will we see a rise of anti-social media apps that take us back to a "much more civilized time" of elegant and simple lightsabers rather than social blasters? I'm not sure. But the evolution of media is definitely fascinating to participate in and ponder.

I joined Delicious back around the Holiday Season of 2004 and soon started bookmarking with regularity.  Aside from GMail, Delicious was one of the first web2.0 sites I really got excited about. And for good reason. Delicious changed the way we all thought about bookmarking. 

"A long long time ago, I remember how that music used to make me smile..."

However, Delicious eventually caught on, found a solid userbase and got itself acquired by Yahoo. Despite a site-wide user interface revamp, things have been stagnant on Delicious for the last couple of years. The original founders left Yahoo, the rabid community seemed to dissipate and folks like myself went off searching for other places to bookmark our web finds. One of those places was Ma.gnolia.com. We all know how that went (#FAIL)  I've been trying Diigo since I'm teaching and there's a heavy concentration of educators there (and great tools for us), but I still wanted a place where I could post my bookmarks in a quick, easy and thoughtless manner.

I might have found that in Pinboard.

Not only is it what Delicious was in '04, it includes a nifty "Read Later" function (hello Instapaper!). Best of all, Pinboard is "antisocial bookmarking" that gives me exactly what I want - bookmarking without having to worry about who is following, subscribed, in my network, etc. Clean, simple, fast and antisocial are sometimes good qualities.

This mentality even shows itself in the sign-up process. Rather than having an "open beta" program, you have to pay an increasing fee to join Pinboard. In other words, as the service becomes more popular, you have to pay more to join.  I had to pay $2.91 via Amazon Payments to join. I love that thinking. Revolutionary. Look for more copycats very soon.

So will Pinboard replace Delicious for me? Already has. Will it replace Diigo? Time will tell. Will Pinboard replace Instapaper? Not sure. I'd need an iPhone app or some way to save things on mobile Safari (iPhone browser) to make that happen.

But for the time being, I'm excited 2004-style. Fingers are crossed that roadmap goal at the top of this post doesn't happen

More Here:

http://audioboo.fm/boos/40613-audioboo-reconsidered-bc-of-time-limit