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Matt Ellsworth › Comments

Robert Scoble
davidrauf: Rackspace Hosting says it added about 10,000 new customers in the 3Q for a total of 80,944. #mysa #rackspace - http://twitter.com/davidra...
If they are all rackspace customers (and not cloud/etc) then thats at least 4,000,000 in extra monthly revenue. If they are cloud, sites, slicehost, etc - then who knows... - Matt Ellsworth
LANjackal
"Speedtest.net for Android is the perfect application to test 3G speeds. The app was just released in the last 48 hours and has already been updated several times to fix some bugs. The service works just as one would expect it to. A settings page allows you to change servers, adjust speed measurements, and sort history." - Just tested it on the Droid, it works OK but seems stuck in portrait orientation. - LANjackal from Bookmarklet
Finally :) - Can Demirezen
mine's stuck in portrait too. tested VZW 3g at 794 down and 776 up. Second test 1051 down and 735 up. faster uploads than standard cable service. - Matt Ellsworth
I was about to say the same ... VZW's upload speeds are impressive (although I can burst upload at nearly 2 MB/s and do so consistently at ~420 kB/s on Comcast), especially the fact that up/down is nearly symmetrical. I tested at 811 kB/s down 751 up myself - LANjackal from IM
App crashes if Droid is locked while it's running on top - LANjackal from IM
Mark Hendricks
Here's what Pelosi's health care plan really means to you http://online.wsj.com/article... RT
This is TERRIBLe!!!!!!!!! - Matt Ellsworth
imabonehead
Droid Battery Life Requires New Charging Habits - http://www.pcworld.com/busines...
Droid Battery Life Requires New Charging Habits
"Until battery technology changes to double or triple capacity, you will have to change your charging habits to fit the needs of the smartphone. Instead of charging it every few days, or only charging it overnight, you need to charge the phone basically whenever it isn't being used. Driving in your car--charge the phone. Sitting at your desk--charge the phone. Sleeping at night--charge the phone." - imabonehead from Bookmarklet
That's just plain ridiculous. - Vincent van Wylick
That hasn't been my experience. I made it all day yesterday without having to recharge. I didn't recharge overnight either. And my phone kept going with quick little car charges throughout the day today while I was running errands. Battery life isn't any worse than the iPhone. - Jason Huebel
And they say "change habits to fit the needs of /THE/ smartphone". So they aren't saying that this is limited to the Droid. Phones are eating up more and more power as they essentially become hand-held computers. - Jason Huebel
I think the more intelligent strategy is to better optimize your power management on your device. For instance, I manage which features are enabled (GPS, wifi, email syncing and screen brightness) using Android's Power Control widget. Just adjusting the screen brightness to 50% (which is still very readable indoors) makes a huge difference in battery life. - Jason Huebel
FTA: "One site did a review specifically on the battery life of the Droid. For the study, the Droid screen brightness was maxed out, the screen was set to 'Never Sleep', MP3's were loaded and the media player was turned on to 'Repeat All Songs'. They even threw in an hour of Google Navigation usage while all of that was going on and still managed over 7 hours of battery life. Let's see... more... - Jason Huebel
As someone who has has many Smartphones (PalmOS and WinMob, soon Droid this week), I have come to expect poor battery life with the standard battery. BUT this is the key to removable batteries. A larger battery will come to the Droid, they usually add some weight and a little bulk but have never truly ruined my experience (besides the quest for the perfect case). - manielse (Mark Nielsen)
On my iPhone I use this (http://bit.ly/3ZEfsF) to double the capacity. Droid needs a similar external battery, that preserve the internal battery, that will works only when that is empty (and physically detached) - Roberto aka postoditacco from fftogo
I hope some of these ideas work. I got a droid and it is killer to batteries... but perhaps it just needs to go through some cycling to get it to work better. - Matt Ellsworth
@Matt, the best thing you can do is have the screen turn off sooner and adjust the screen brightness to stay at 50%. Unless you use your phone outside a lot, you won't need it any brighter, IMO. But if you do go outside, the Power Control widget allows you to increase the brightness to 100% with a single tap. Then when you go back inside, you can adjust back to 50% with a couple more taps. - Jason Huebel
@jason -- cool I'll give that a shot - I tried to turn on the auto screen dimmer thing - not so sure about that... and have the screen set to turn off after 30 seconds instead of 1 min. - Matt Ellsworth
Darren Rowse
ProBlogger.com Price Rise Coming in 1 Week – Lock in the Intro Price Today - http://www.problogger.net/archive...
sounds pretty reasonable $1.95/month - Matt Ellsworth
Tim Hoeck
AndFeed
device.png
device2.png
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Custom buttons is a go.. Still working on the photos, work in progress. Will need beta testers soon. Sign here. - Tim Hoeck
first - Matthew DeVries
Sign me up for the beta. Can't wait to test it out! - Jon, the Beartato of FF
I want in! - Christopher A Carr
Sign me up too - posting from G1 - David K
I'm so in. - Aaron D'Souza
count me in....let me know when the beta is - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ
Sign me up 4 beta testing. :) - Adrian
Yes, please count me in for Beta-Tester. I'm perfect for finding any glitch :) - Ryo / Fuck Facebook
I'd like to beta-test it, please! - Christoph Studer
Hey, and after the official release, don't forget to make a DONATION-Button on your homepage :) - Ryo / Fuck Facebook
I'd happily pay for such an app. Fiddy sent would be fine. (Once out of beta) - Matthew DeVries
Would love to help test =) - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I'd love to beta test this too :-) - Christian Cable
I so want in. Would love to beta test this app. - Naomi Williams
Me too! - Eph Zero
Hey Tim,. you already giving out AndFeed (http://friendfeed.com/android... ) ? HEYYYY, don't forget me. - Ryo / Fuck Facebook
hah! It's in the room! It is considered very Pre-beta.. still broken stuff.. but I want to know If I should continue on this path, or make a drastic change.. http://ff.im/4DGzk - Tim Hoeck
good stuff! - Sham Hardy
Hi, I'd like to give AndFeed a try!! Sign me up for beta testing, thanks! - Daniel De Vidi - DvD
Hi Daniel, as soon as I have a new version ready to test, I'll include you.. recently, I've been a bit busy, and haven't been able to work on it. - Tim Hoeck
I'd love to beta test too! sign me up... - Dylan Lorimer
+1! - Tassoman
I know guys, I will get there, I promise! I had to put things on hold for a bit, to move and to finish my ADC project.. - Tim Hoeck
@Tim Ok, of course we understand. I'm anxiously awaiting the beta version for testing. - Naomi Williams
If not too late, would like to be a tester. - Tim Rowe
Would love to beta test. :) - Adrian
Looks amazing. I just need an Android device. - Zachary TG
@Tim activated my andriod today (HTC Hero) and would _love_ to be able to try out this app. seems you're busy right now - that's cool. just let me know when you have a beta to test and i'd be happy to give you feedback. cheers! - MikeAmundsen
Yes, I hate that I haven't had time to get back to this.. but I have something a bit bigger planned, we'll see how it pans out... congrats on the phone :) - Tim Hoeck
@Tim: no problem. now tha FF is kinda on the downslide, i can see that something like this project might need to move to the back burner. the "something bigger" tease is cruel, tho<g>. - MikeAmundsen
If you're still looking for beta testers, I'd love to give it a whirl. - James Britt
please count me in! - milus
yes, please! - Sean O'Connor
I'm willing to test it - let me know - Matt Ellsworth
What's the latest on this, anyway? - Andy Bakun
Yes please. - Sean O'Connor
Jason Huebel
This is my Motorola Droid review. Hope you guys like it. - Jason Huebel
Nice writeup, Jason! - imabonehead
Thanks. :-) - Jason Huebel
Planning to write apps for it? - imabonehead
I've already downloaded the SDK. But there's a bit of a learning curve to overcome. If anyone has any suggestions on good Android programming resources (other than Google's site), please let me know. I wouldn't even mind killing a few trees for a book. - Jason Huebel
There's quite a few android books but i never read them myself - http://www.amazon.com/Android... - imabonehead
I find http://www.androidsnippets.org useful for learn-by-example stuff. Also, the API demos that come with the SDK. The Google docs have improved quite a bit over the course of this year. They are definately a good starting point for the high level fundemental stuff. - Andrew Perry from Android
Oh, BTW, great review Jason. Almost makes me want to trade up my ADP-1 for a Droid, since it sounds like an excellent device. Will be interested to know what the average battery life is, and if it has suffered by giving this phone a much larger screen & faster CPU. - Andrew Perry from Android
Well, I charged yesterday morning, used the phone all day and didn't charge over night. I'm at >50% battery power. I've done a little power management, so YMMV. So that's about 28 hours without charging. - Jason Huebel from IM
Good review! - Christoph Studer
More regarding battery life: the Droid recharges very slowly. Maybe that and the relatively long battery life indicates a larger battery? Anybody know? - Jason Huebel from IM
it might also explain the additional weight of the phone. - Jason Huebel from IM
BTW, I've been using the phone heavily this afternoon. Still at 20%. - Jason Huebel from Android
I have briefly plugged into my car charger while out running errands. But other than that, no long charging since yesterday morning. - Jason Huebel from Android
@Jason its a 1400 mAh battery. life of it seems to depend on what you are doing. - Matt Ellsworth
Yeah, I'm realistic about how long the battery will last. If I'm playing MP3's and talking on the phone, I expect decent battery life. But if I'm watching videos, I don't expect more than a few hours, max. - Jason Huebel
Matt Cutts
Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...
Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell
I don't get it. People actually pay for points on their games? - Piaw Na
Piaw - it's a trade of money for time. - Andrew C
BTW, I had no idea the scams were this bad. I have friends who work at some of the "bad" gaming companies named here. - Andrew C
Maybe this is part of the reason that Apple is so restrictive about iPhone apps. - Robert Felty
Robert, Apple's review process can't discover apps that do this -- they can't tell whether the ad unit that shows a legitimate ad during the review process suddenly starts showing scammy lead-gen a week later. I'd look at it a different way: scammy lead-gen shows up everywhere that content providers don't attach value to having a satisfied user (email spam, search engine spam, etc.). The best way for FB to avoid this is to make their platform useful for nontrivial app authors. Looks like they're trying... - Daniel Dulitz
Good point Daniel. It seems like it is a pretty difficult thing to police. Maybe they could create a blacklist of advertisers. - Robert Felty
Its not always the advertisers, its how the offers are presented. Tatto Media suggested we block people from seeing more than 3 articles on our site without forcing the user to fill out an offer of their choice. Of course we didn't implement this and it wouldn't drive the user experience we are looking for. - Matt Ellsworth
Matt Cutts
Apple announces 100K apps http://www.apple.com/pr... (congrats!) But anyone could generate 100K+ apps for Android programmatically.
There are already a lot of apps in android - and a whole lot of terrible ones, i'm sure the ratio is the same - Matt Ellsworth
Matt Cutts
Suppose we wanted an old Cray supercomputer for our office. Does anyone have one lying around?
The old round ones would make great circular benches :) - Joel Webber
ebay ? [edited] ...none on ebay , grooan :-( - Luca Perencin ( No_CQRT )
Little known fact: The circular "bench seats" at the bottom of them are power transformers. They were covered with plywood which was then covered with naugahyde. - Otto
no... but it would be a very cool idea - Matt Ellsworth
Matt Cutts
I'll be in Vegas next week w/my wife for vacation + PubCon. What must-see activities, restaurants, or shows should we hit in Las Vegas?
Any suggestions from FFers? - Matt Cutts
Pirates of Treasure Island, Downtown Fremont Street Experience - Amit Nangare
Phantom was pretty good, Blue man group is great, hotel wise we loved the palazzo / venetian. - Matt Ellsworth
John Clark
Think and Grow Rich is one of the most profound books about successful living ever written. Do you have a copy? - http://www.freetgrbook.com/default...
sure do... - Matt Ellsworth
Brian Morrissey
facebook is telling me i haven't talked to my mom on fb lately and should write on her wall. this 'feature' needs rethinking.
I get ones that say "your mom only has X friends, you should suggest some more"... - Matt Ellsworth
dhamza
Who Wins Under a Cap-and-Trade System? - http://www.fastcompany.com/blog...
Who Wins Under a Cap-and-Trade System?
people like al gore who own a carbon credit company... forest owners if they let them sell the carbon credits for the carbon the trees absorb... other than that... everyone but the consumer who ends up paying more. - Matt Ellsworth
Kevin Fox
U.S. FarmVille players outnumber actual farmers 60 to 1. - http://www.nytimes.com/glogin...
U.S. FarmVille players outnumber actual farmers 60 to 1.
I want FarmVille to pay me subsidy credits for letting my fields like fallow. - Kevin Fox from Bookmarklet
My wife is obsessed with this. The sooner we get an allotment, the better. - Tony Ruscoe
I had no idea Pincus was involved with this. *misses Tribe*. Tony, I know how she feels, I'm losing my garden and this might make some kind of security blanket substitute for me... (EDIT: after reading that article there's no way I'd start doing it. I have enough online addictions already. Just say no for me.) - Spidra Webster
'Some academics have gone so far as to suggest that their collective popularity points to a widespread yearning for the pastoral life. “The whole concept of ‘I’m sick of this modern, urban lifestyle, I wish I could just grow plants and vegetables and watch them grow,’ there is something very therapeutic about that,” said Philip Tan, director of the Singapore-M.I.T. Gambit Game Lab, a... more... - Ruchira S. Datta
I'm totally obsessed with Farmville. Well, I live in the city but was born in a very rural area with lots of farms. Now if only the crops were real and I could plant real things. *lol* - Mol, Time Warping
Isn't Mafia Wars about "I'm sick of having to obey laws"? ;-) - Spidra Webster
Yeah, and they're all my relatives dumping crap on my facebook page all the time. God I hate those game updates (that goes for Mafia Wars, too). - Joel Webber
I wonder if they will pass the laws prohibiting the development of farm land as well to prevent the housing creep - Matt Ellsworth
I see where this is leading. All they need to do now is deploy the IP-addressable ag robots. - Victor Ganata
Interesting thought, Victor... As for FarmVille, I just opened it up to have a look earlier this week, but, like Restaurant City, it's not really grabbing my attention... I think I have some crops rotting already =/ Haven't felt interested enough to go check... - Kamilah Gill
This looks similar to the apparently super-popular-in-China Happy Farms. - Philipp Lenssen
Bret Taylor
Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model « abovethecrowd.com - http://abovethecrowd.com/2009...
"While it is obvious that this maneuver creates a problem for the multi-billion dollar GPS market, it also poses real challenges for the leading smart phone players – RIM’s Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone. Without access to their own mapping data, these vendors now face an interesting dilemma. Do you risk flying naked without free navigation or do you suck it up and swallow the above average royalty fee for each and every handset? Neither option is stellar. This problem isn’t nearly as daunting as the one now faced by the Windows Mobile and Symbian teams. As software providers, they are lucky to get a per unit royalty equal to that extracted by the GPS data guys. If they are now forced to integrate this data merely to keep their product competitive, their gross margin just went negative. Ouch!" - Bret Taylor from Bookmarklet
I would love to be a fly on the wall in Redmond - Ray Cromwell
I'm psyched to get Google maps powered navigation. they provide much better directions than tom tom ever could... and if they calculate live traffic as well thats good. but i'm curious as to why Verizon doesn't seem to mind since their nav package is normally $15/month. - Matt Ellsworth
My experience with Google has been completely different. They were notably subpar when they stopped licensing the leader in map data a year or two ago, and their directions now are as bad or worse than MapQuest. I split the difference now between them and a GPS unit when I need to, but generally prefer to use an actual map for most accurate directions. - Cole Jolley
I think this is likely to change in a big way once they fully leverage their Street View database. Still, I can't argue with free when the errors are few IMHO. - Ray Cromwell
Is this an example of "open" systems putting people out of business? (of course, it's not personal, it's just business..." - Cliff Gerrish
What I really don't understand is: why are there so many lost people? - LogEx from iPhone
Does Google actually make any money from their maps? How many Google behaviors are enabled by their huge search revenues and how many of those can continue as their dominance wanes? Also as the article mentions Nokia owns Navteq so the "Symbian" problem is a non issue (unless you think there is a viable Symbian outside of a Nokia context). - Hayes Haugen
Now the droid initiative on verizon finally makes sense to me. I watched the demos as they showed off feature after feature that verizon likes to charge extra for thinking no way is this not going to be expensive. But with google paying verizon on search ad revenue, verizon doesn't have to nickel and dime their customers for every added feature. - dthree
"I would love to be a fly on the wall in Redmond" - things may be just as interesting in Cupertino. - John Craft
Google's move is similar to MSFT's free browser play. - Cliff Gerrish
I'm wondering how Apple's purchase of PlaceBace is going to play out. Are they going to ditch Google Maps on the iPhone? - Matt Mastracci
I also have issue with the "less than free" thing as a new disruptive thing. Pay-to-play on a platform or a device is not new (e.g. anti-virus software). - Hayes Haugen
@hayes yes, you're darn rite about Navteq thingie... - A.T.
Matt Cutts
RT @iamjason "Would You Like to Make 5 Million Dollars A Week Posting a Link On Google?" http://www.makemoneypostingali...
A total hoax, hehe. - Orlando Pozo
Brilliant! - David Knight
thats a pretty good spoof of what we see out there - Matt Ellsworth
but why are you retweeting it, there are people like me who believe blindly to whatever Matt Cutts say about google things, so i think there should have been some caution involved - testbeta
Andy Beard
Why does clearing out your email and other todo items @ 4am just seem to go so much faster?
probably because the internet moves faster then.. - Matt Ellsworth
Benjamin Golub
Pet peeve: companies that put their address in an image on their website making it impossible to copy/paste into Google Maps
What's up with that? Oh well, Google will just OCR it eventually anyway. - Tanath
That seems pretty counter productive if you ask me. - Matt Ellsworth
We have a client whose "logo" is basically their biz card stuff, complete with address. They had a quasi-meltdown last week asking for the address in *their* image to be changed. No one there seems to understand why we won't or can't change it. Silly. - Anika
When we launched Maps, one of the best "new" features we put in that didn't get much attention was capturing the clipboard paste and replacing line breaks with commas so you could copy and paste a full address in an email into our search box (rather than typing all the components into separate form fields like MapQuest). Turned out to be a pain to do in many browsers - I spent an annoying number of hours tweaking it at the time (though it is easier in modern browsers). - Bret Taylor
Bret: Why not just offer a multi-line text box? - Gabe
Bret: I noticed that :). But it didn't always do that did it? I vaguely remember being frustrated that nobody did that - Benjamin Golub from email
++Bret - Cristo
Ben, what about companies that put email addresses in images in their info area instead of letting you click on a link or select the email address text? :) - Cristo
Cristo: I'm not sure which is worse but I feel like I run into the maps issue more :) - Benjamin Golub
Anika, teach them about hCard http://microfromats.org/wiki... - now supported in Google rich snippets - Kevin Marks
Matt Cutts
@internetdoctor once you get a taste of that Chrome speed, it's hard to give it up. :)
Especially when using Google Wave. That javascript engine is something else :) - Jesse Newhart
I'm hooked thats for sure. I got mad early when a company said that their site only worked in IE... ick - Matt Ellsworth
Kalena Jordan
Hey SEO kids, how long has that "Text Only Version" link been active on Google cached pages? Only just noticed it
I've never seen it before now. maybe it goes along with the webmaster tools thing "spider view" - Matt Ellsworth
Allen Stern
the most interesting thing about how ff has changed post-facebook is that it's WAY slower. i wonder if they removed some of their servers or CDNs or something. ff has amazing tech - i hope no matter what that someone realizes this.
I haven't noticed a slowdown on speed, to be honest. - Louis Gray
that is because you, scoble and stay have your own bank of servers. the rest of us have slowdowns - Allen Stern
I've noticed a slowdown, actually. It isn't as snappy as it was eight months ago, that's for sure. - Robert Scoble
yah it does seem a little slower than before. - Matt Ellsworth
it can be largely attributed to the plummet in uniques that you pointed out in your article. Less log ins = less comments/likes or less bumps/activity = the stale "Real Time" feed people keep mentioning - sofarsoShawn
Andy Beard
RT @woopra Woopra Officially Exits Beta http://www.woopra.com/blog... (hope its not long before multi-domain plans)
Interesting service and application, but I'm not sure its worth $100/month. - Matt Ellsworth
polou/indigo_bow
Two words: Nuclear batteries. - Blogs - Yahoo! Canada Tech - http://ca.tech.yahoo.com/blogs...
Two words: Nuclear batteries. - Blogs - Yahoo! Canada Tech
Researchers at the University of Missouri say they've achieved the unthinkable, and that a pint-sized power cell based on radioactive decay can last a ridiculously long time: a million times as long as a conventional battery, enough to keep putting out a charge for hundreds of years. - polou/indigo_bow from Bookmarklet
very cool -- if they can get it to the marketplace - Matt Ellsworth
Wouldnt there be a danger of radiation when the product is being used or when recycled? - TrafficBug
Products that last "forever" are not as profitable as those that need to be frequently replaced. What battery company would want to produce these and put themselves out of business? - April Russo (app103)
Louis Gray
Re: Cliqset: FriendFeed Done Right - http://mashable.com/2009...
"Exactly. It's like saying the Yugo is BMW done right. But it's easier to drive because there are fewer options!" - Louis Gray
*dead* - Anika
bwahahahahaha! - WorldofHiglet
You win the internets Louis. - Maxamad (Amazigh)
Definitly made my day (: - M. Hakan Deryal
Hey you guys. Stop commenting here. Didn't you hear nobody uses FriendFeed any more? Cut it out. - Louis Gray
I'm really not into that Cliqset.. where is the open stream of information from the people.. I miss that.. And friendfeed remains Friendfeed.. nothing is replacing it.. it might get better but not replacing.. - Jaap Willem
Enter the, Oh, Facebook buys networks like FriendFeed... ergo, I should build one and say it is just as good. Latecomers are just getting started folks, just barely getting started. - Sid Burgess
loved the remark about facebook buying the wrong company.. - Matt Ellsworth
Andy Beard
Dear @Google - you are speed freaks, my Friend Connect widget is 49471 bytes larger than it should be
I've often wondered why so many of the errors that the google pagespeed tool kicks off are from FriendConn - Matt Ellsworth
Do yourself a favor and chuck it. I did. - BLOGBloke
Robert Scoble
dannynewman: Very angry at google/gmail right now. They tried to bill an old credit card, didn't work, shut off my gmail. Paid them, 24 hrs to process?! - http://twitter.com/dannyne...
why is this guy paying for gmail? - Chris Heath
I'd guess he has a corporate account to get a domain or something. - Robert Scoble
ahh Google Apps For Your Domain. I have that, but under 10 signons is free. I do feel sorry for him, and google probably should handle the situation better, but i can't say he's not at fault at least partially here either. - Chris Heath
If your using your own domain you pay even 4 standard 4 gmail, @Chris - polou/indigo_bow
on top of the domain payment, you pay Première Edition 2 Google, thats why much better 2 deal w/ your own host provider! - polou/indigo_bow
polou i don't pay, and i get 10 email addresses for free http://www.google.com/apps... you can see that you get the basics for free - Chris Heath
some people pay for gmail when you use up the 7.7GB of space. - Matt Ellsworth
dhamza
"When the speed limit was raised from 55 mph to 70 mph, incidents of aggressive driving dropped to zero." [Interesting] - http://www.fark.com/cgi...
nice theory. in my experience driving on roads with higher speed limits. aggressive driving on 55mph roads is high - Matt Ellsworth
Somewhat analogous to the studies showing that the elimination of things like raised sidewalks and painted roadway boundary lines in urban areas reduces accidents. False senses of security are avoided and drivers are reminded that they must remain attentive and reduce speed in order to stay safe. - Stephen M. Otto from iPhone
Robert Scoble
RT @loic: Zynga does it again: new game CafeWorld from 0 to 8.6 million users in a week http://ping.fm/eMnos’s...
will have to look into that - Matt Ellsworth
Matt Cutts
Just saw this ad in Gmail while talking about WordPress with someone: "Is your WordPress HACKED? Same day cleanup for only US$19.95 30 day money back guarantee."
makes you wonder how much human approval goes on in the adwords dept some times. I saw ads on my site including display urls including my url. They said they must have missed those. - Matt Ellsworth
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