InfoTart

Someone wrote to me the other day asking whether FloSpace FloPrompter is available with a special discount for academic institutions. The answer is most definitely yes!

The academic pricing is currently about 60% off for a single license. An even deeper discount is available for volume purchases. School media specialists, teachers, principals, and students are all eligible for the discount.

What’s cool is that the features are exactly the same as the regular, non-academic product. The only difference between the two versions is the price!

How would I use FloPrompter in a School?

The uses I’ve heard of so far include:

• School video production:  A school in one of the Carolinas has an in-school cable TV station. They use FloPrompter for producing their newscasts.
• Public Speaking Training: An education tech media consultant in Michigan said that she thought FloPrompter would be a great tool for helping to teach public speaking & presentation skills to elementary school students.

For more information on academic pricing, please call or write to me directly: FloSpace Contact Page.

My 20th high school class reunion was a couple of weeks ago. I flew back to Michigan to attend it and visit my family. Visiting the family is always enjoyable (true!). And I’m really glad to say that I had a lot more fun at the reunion than I was expecting…

I grew up in a small farming village in Southeastern Michigan called Onsted, just south of Ann Arbor. There were about 600 people in the village limits at the time, and I think that today the number isn’t much higher than maybe 700 or 800. Nowadays, there’s even a very tiny “supermarket”. More like an “enhanced bodega” on the north side of town, but even that is a huge step up. The closest supermarket would otherwise be about 15 miles away.
Anyway, for such a small town, we actually had a large school district covering many of the nearby lakes. Altogether, there were about 110 kids in my graduating class. My brother’s class had 150 kids and put a big strain on the school at the time.

Well, this was our first reunion for the class of ‘87 in about 10 years. We skipped the 15. Thankfully, a guy in our class lives in the area and has a house with a huge back yard. And a pool. And a big tent. And knows how to hold a pig roast. Matt did an amazing job hosting the party! A couple other classmates worked with Matt to organize the event, including somehow finding a bunch of old classmates who’d moved out of the area.

When the day finally arrived, 36 classmates, most with spouses and/or kids in tow, showed up that Saturday at Matt’s house. Considering that many of us didn’t really like each other very much, that’s a pretty amazing accomplishment. Nikki flew in from Dallas, Matt from Seattle, and me from Boston. A few other classmates came from around the Midwest. It was a much better showing than I think any of the organizers had expected.

And I’m glad to say that I think everyone had a great time. Better than anyone had expected.

And isn’t it weird when one sees old classmates, all of the old emotions, hurts, embarrassments, loves, and fights surface again? Maybe that’s why so many stayed away. Still, it was good to face them. I found myself really liking the people that several of my old classmates had become and wishing that we all lived closer. Who knows when I’ll see any of them again, but I’m *really* glad that I went to the reunion.

In case you’re curious, here are some pictures:  http://handaweb.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2648 

We have a number of UIQ 3.0 devices in our office from Sony-Ericsson and Motorola. Most unfortunately, smartphones using the UIQ operating system aren’t readily available in the US — you certainly won’t spot one at your corner wireless store! That’s a crying shame because the new devices from Sony-Ericsson (and soon Motorola) are pretty cool. I’m becoming very fond of the spanky new Sony-Ericsson P1i and the Motorola MOTORIZR Z8.

Well, having put some new themes on the Nokia E61 last night, I realized that the P1i needed a theme makeover, as well. And where to get themes for UIQ devices?

If you have one of the new UIQ 3 devices, then you should start at the official UIQ web site. They’ve created a good handful of fun, high quality themes. All absolutely free, too!

UIQ Theme Page: www.uiq.com/uiq_themes_list.html

Yesterday, I wanted to take some screenshots of the iSkoot software running on a shiny new Nokia E61. (Nice devices, but only available overseas. The E62 is its U.S.-only sister.) But instead of taking yet another bunch of screenshots with the same well-known default Nokia “blue spotlight” theme, I thought it’d be fun to put a new theme on it. But where to get themes for this device?
Good news:   A kind Nokia staff person who works on the the E series device team has posted a bunch of cool themes on his blog. Some are official Nokia themes, while others are from contributors who are regular folks around the world. Quality varies, as a result. But the good thing is that they’re free and don’t have viruses! Check them out:

www.e-series.org/nokia-e61-themes

Note that before you install any themes for your E series device, you’ll probably need to adjust its security settings, or the device won’t install the theme. This is especially important for themes from third party contributors (not Nokia). Our friend on the E series team has posted info on how to make this work, as well:

www.e-series.org/archives/192

Enjoy!

Working for a software company that makes software for mobile phones — from lots of manufacturers — I love being able to borrow the latest Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, BlackBerry, or other fun handset for the weekend. (Or, like with the Motorola Ming, indefinitely…) As a result, I have a growing pile of wall chargers for just about everything. Well, thank goodness that I heard about iGo! I just got an iGo charger over the weekend and I’m loving it already.

iGo is this little company that makes wall and car chargers with interchangeable tips. Bring home the hot new BlackBerry Curve? No problem — just snap in tip A29. Is the Ming complaining about running low on juice? Snap in tip A32. Each tip costs right around $10, which I think is pretty good. Radio Shack carries them, plus iGo sells them online. (I wonder if there are any web sites selling them at deep discounts by the bucketful…?)

Now I have one charger plugged into the outlet all the time and a small bag with a bunch of tips in it sitting in a vintage Chinese tea bowl sitting on my desk. At long last I can get rid of that growing rat’s nest of wires and oddly shaped plugs!

I’ve recently begun work on the next release of FloPrompter, which is tentatively scheduled for mid-September. I’m tentatively calling this version 2.5 because it will have a completely overhauled content authoring window and a critical new feature in the teleprompter player. Here are highlights of what I’m working on right now:

• New Word Processor: The current version of the software uses a free text editor that is s-l-o-w and a little buggy. In FloPrompter version 1.0, the text editor was so bad that it sometimes crashed the program unexpectedly. So when I started working on version 2.0, I focused on making it, well, at least tolerable — and so that it wouldn’t crash the program. Now with version 2.5, I’m throwing away the old text editor and installing a brand new one! The new text editor comes from a different company which only makes word processing software. So it’s fast, flexible, and stable. The new processor will make it much easier to paste text in from other sources, including both web pages and Word documents. Changing the style from italics to bold will also be instantaneous rather than taking several seconds. Boy, I can’t wait to get this in!
• Mirrored Text in the Teleprompter Window: This is probably the most requested feature by customers and would-be customers. Traditional teleprompter hardware might show the text “mirrored” on a monitor, and then reflect that off a transparent screen, which is then read by the person speaking. Because the text is reflected off a screen, it will appear normal to the speaker. (Think of those swanky see-through teleprompter screens that you’ve seen the President use in some of his speeches.) I’m delighted to say that I’ve figured out how to make this feature work and we can expect to see it in version 2.5.
• Find & Replace: I have been working out how to implement the Find and Replace features within the new word processor. The new word processor comes with its own built in Find and Replace dialogs, but I’ve grown to dislike having a separate window open for these features (such as how Microsoft Word does it). So instead, I’ll be implementing these features using thin strips at the bottom of the Authoring Window, just like the Firefox web browser does. It’s so much nicer to be able to see and control the Find and Replace features from within the same window.
• Spell Check: Depending on how long it takes to implement the other features, version 2.5 may also have a new Spell Check feature. This feature will also require specialized software from a third party, so it will also be a bit expensive to pay for and bundle into FloPrompter. Still I think that any decent word processor really needs a built-in spell checker, don’t you?
• Spell-as-You-Type: Most people I know are lousy spellers. (God bless us all!) One of my favorite features in Microsoft Word is when it automatically underlines words that are mis-spelled, and then when you right-click on the word with your mouse, it will show you a little popup menu with a bunch of spelling suggestions. That’s a cool feature! Version 2.5 might ship with this feature, too! But fear not, if it doesn’t make it into 2.5, it is pretty likely to make it into 2.6.
• Remembering the old window size and location: One of my customers called me last week on my new FloSpace telephone number to make a personal plea for this feature (plus a few others). In short, when he launches FloPrompter, he wants the window to show up in the same size and location on the screen as the last time he used it. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, so I’ll be implementing this as a user configurable option — you’ll be able to have it open in the center of the screen every time like it does now or have it remember where it opened last time. The trick to implementing this feature is that some customers use FloPrompter in video production, where they’ll connect a second monitor to the computer and run the teleprompter there (say, under a video camera). So I’ll have to do some error checking to make sure that when the window launches it’s actually visible on screen and not off on a second monitor that might not be connected any more.
• Set a default file save location: This is another customer-requested feature. Right now, when you create a new FloPrompter document and click on “Save”, it’ll show you the contents of your My Documents folder first. After you’ve saved the document (say, to a folder called “Teleprompter Speeches”), it’ll offer to open or save files to the most recently used folder for the rest of the time FloPrompter is running. But once you exit FloPrompter, it resets to My Documents again. The customer says he always saves FloPrompter documents to the same folder so he’s requested the ability to set a user preference for the default folder instead of its being My Documents. That sounds pretty good to me, and it should be in the next release.

Should I buy FloPrompter now or wait until 2.5? Buy it now, please! First of all, you should buy it now because all version 2.xx upgrades are absolutely free for FloPrompter customers. Second, every purchase makes it easier for me to afford to buy the expensive software from third parties that I can bundle into FloPrompter (i.e., the new word processing and spell checking capabilities) to make it an even better product for you to enjoy.

As always, many thanks to the FloSpace customers who’ve written or called with feedback and suggestions! Please see the FloSpace contact page for more information on how you can contact me with your ideas.

A customer called me up this afternoon on my new FloSpace telephone number. He had a couple of great ideas for new features, which I’ll share with y’all later. One feature he asked me about had to do with controlling FloPrompter by using a foot pedal. Apparently, he’s in a karaoke band that plays music live while you sing to it (how cool is that?!), so of course he needs to keep his hands free for playing.

Does anyone know about using a foot pedal with desktop software? I never knew it was possible, though it sounds pretty cool.

The recently released FloPrompter version 2.2 now supports wireless remote presenters which control a PC’s  media keys (like play, pause/stop, volume up/down, next/previous) — even if the PC doesn’t have separate keys for these. So in theory, assuming a foot pedal can be set up to activate any of these media control keys or F keys, then it ought to work just fine with FloPrompter today. (Most teleprompter player control features have at least 3 sets of keyboard shortcuts for maximum usability.)

Anyway, if you have a foot pedal set up to control desktop software, please contact me and let’s test FloPrompter’s support for foot pedals. It sounds like a neat feature and it would be really cool to be able to say that we support them!

A guy I work with at iSkoot used to work on the team that was designing and building the Motorola A1200 (”Ming”) device. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s wicked cool looking AND feels great in the hand. Plus, it’s a decent phone all around. I read earlier this year that the Motorola CEO had said they were thinking of bringing the phone to the US. Let’s hope so!

Motorola Ming Home Page

When I found out that he used to be on the device program, drool began running down the side of my mouth. I soooo wanted one, but it’s a China-only phone (though recently launched in Latin America, too). I’m such a gadget freak!

Well, my co-worker asked his contacts to ship one from China. I was thrilled to finally have one in my grubby little hands! So I put my Cingular SIM card in and easily made a call. Nice!

Unfortunately, I had no idea what the settings were to get the browser to work. The Ming had all of these extra fields in the APN setup screen that I haven’t seen on other devices. It was way too complicated, and unlike other modern-day handset manufacturers (read: Nokia and Sony-Ericsson, among others), Motorola doesn’t offer a web-based service for me to order settings directly from their web site for my phone. Duh, Motorola! Wake up and smell the 21st Century!

Anyways, I did some snooping online and found this web site called Hi-Mobile that sells the Ming at a great price — and they have information on the settings for popular GSM-based carriers, including Cingular (er, I mean “the new AT&T”).

Hi-Mobile Motorola Ming Info Page

What I didn’t realize at the time is that Hi-Mobile also has great prices on phones in general. Their price for the Moto Ming is a bit cheaper than most other web sites I saw.

Last week, I had to buy a Sony-Ericsson M600i for work. We went to one web site and paid a lot for it — somewhere north of $400. About an hour or two after ordering it, I went to Hi-Mobile on a lark and saw that they have the same device — in both white and black — for about half the going rate. Just $200!!

Hi-Mobile Sony-Ericsson M600i Info Page

Next time we need a device without a plan, I’m definitely starting at Hi-Mobile. (I hope they have reliable service, too…)

For those who have never heard of the M600i (because Sony-Ericsson never sells its cool UIQ3-based phones in America), the device is a PDA-style phone, kind of like a Palm Treo except cooler and with a much more modern OS (UIQ 3.0). I love the keypad, too, though it’s drawn a lot of negative comments in some corners. (The brand new Sony-Ericsson P1i has the same keyboard, which seems to get a love it/hate it kind of reaction.)

By the way, I’m really digging the M600i, which I didn’t think I would. I love the qwerty keypad. It’s pretty fast. It plays music and video. You can even open Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files using DataViz. The only real negatives are that it has no camera and uses the damned Sony M2 Micro memory card. Why can’t Sony acknowledge reality and move to the SD memory card standard like everyone else??

One more plug for the M600i. If you’re looking for an inexpensive PDA phone, and you prefer qwerty keypads (rather than the 0-9*# keypads), and don’t mind the fact that the phone doesn’t have a camera, then you should consider this device. In the US, it’ll work on Cingular/AT&T and T-Mobile. $200 is a really tough price to beat — phones less capable than this one sell for a lot more. Get the 2 GB M2 memory card for about $31 at NewEgg.com. (Hold off on the 4 GB M2 cards which are still around $70.)

Working in the mobile software industry, I’d heard little rumors here and there that Google was working on a secret new phone. This secret phone would be completely Google’s own hardware design, would run Linux (naturally NOT Windows Mobile), and of course be tightly integrated to its web-based services. Today, the press and blogosphere is hot on the news after the Wall Street Journal reported on it

“Google spending hundreds of millions on mobile”, Reuters

To be honest, I’d started hearing these rumors early last Fall (2006), so I’m surprised it took so long for the “legitimate” press to catch on.

I’m pleased to announce that I published version 2.2 of FloSpace FloPrompter. For those in the know, my little software company is called FloSpace and my first product is a teleprompter that runs on PCs. (No Mac or Linux support right now. )

Version 2.2 features these significant enhancements:

• A new tag line! “Elegance Flows” The new tag line is featured in a few new places in the UI, such as the startup splash screen and About dialog. I wanted to select a tag line that incorporated the word “flow” in it to connote not only how the text smoothly flows up the teleprompter screen, but how using the software helps our customers become more elegant speakers.
• Remote Presenter Support: After several potential customers sent me emails asking whether the teleprompter player could be controlled with a wireless remote control (such as the type also used to control PowerPoint presentations), I decided to do some investigations. I purchased a remote presenter control from Keyspan and found out that almost all of the requested features already worked! The only features that didn’t work were speeding up and slowing down the scrolling on the teleprompter. So by hooking into the volume up, volume down, and mute keys, now all requested features are supported. A friend of mine who works at Nokia (my ex-employer, too) has the PSiLOC Wireless Presenter software for his Nokia E61i phone (a cool new phone!), so I’m hoping to do a quick test on that later, too.
• Copy & Paste Support for Segment Title Edits: Now when you double click on the tab page for a segment to activate the title editor, you can cut, copy, and paste text in the title editor. It’s a little feature, I know, but it’s nice to be able to do it finally.
• Bug Fix: Clicking on the Text Size in the Toolbar During Segment Title Edit Mode Caused a Fatal Crash: This was a nasty little bug that I hadn’t even thought about testing for. In short, when you double clicked on the tab page to edit a segment title, then clicked on the text size item in the toolbar, it caused the program to hang. Thankfully, a customer wrote me as soon as he (painfully) experienced this bug, which was one of the main reasons I released version 2.2 so soon. In a future version, I’ll put in support for changing the text size of the segment title tabs.

Upgrade Recommendation: Yes! Most upgrades are softly recommended. However, due to the new wireless presenter support and the fatal bug fix in particular, I highly recommend that FloPrompter customers upgrade to version 2.2. This is, of course, a free upgrade for all FloPrompter customers! FloPrompter customers can download the latest version on the FloSpace Downloads page.

Many thanks to the customers (and potential customers) who’ve written with feedback about Teleprompter. As you can see, your comments are heard and result in direct improvements to the software!