A THIEF spoiled the first Sinulog of Smart social media senior supervisor Abbie Real.

Real was in Cebu Friday to attend the launching of an electronic guidebook on Cebu and the data tagging of the province’s heritage and tourism sites using QR code.

When Smart staff members were preparing for the photo at the Heritage of Cebu Monument, someone called out for a fourth device to display the e-book. We already had an iPhone, Kindle and iPad. Abbie said she brought her iPad with her and offered its use. She later said she couldn’t find it.

After we did a short demonstration on how people could download information on heritage and tourism structures through the scanning of QR codes in special markers, Abbie realized her iPad was stolen.

She used the Find My iPhone app that is integrated into the device and found that it was on its way to Barangay Camputhaw.

The final location of the device indicated by the system is accurate to a few meters and you could easily pick the house out in Purok 8, Barangay Camputhaw. The suspected location is indicated by a radius that covers about two houses.

Continue reading ‘Tracking a stolen iPad’

LAST week, Google finally released for Android devices, iPad and iPhone its long-awaited mobile news reading application Google Currents.

The application, however, is still only available for devices in the US. The decision to allow only US users to test the application has sparked criticisms in some website comments sections. While previous Google products came out first as invitation-only beta programs, they offered everyone the same chances of getting into the testing pool.

Android users outside the US, however, can still install the application by downloading the installer from other sources. I got mine from the XDA Developers forum.

My first impression of the app was that it was visually appealing in that less-is-more kind of way that has become the trend nowadays. There has been a general movement toward simpler design in interfaces and Google Currents reflects that. It was also much more functional and easier to manage than some of the RSS and mobile readers that I am currently using.

Continue reading ‘Google releases news reading app Currents’

TO do well online, close your website department.

The website department as we know it today is approaching obsolescence, even anachronism.

It’s like a typists’ pool-–convenient but unessential, an extra layer of fat that is fatal in today’s time of lean startups and agile companies.

Today, the Internet should be central to everything that you do. It should be the base on which you add layers for your specific business processes – not the other way around. Having one department do online tasks while the other sections stay offline is as old-fashioned as the typists’ pool.

In today’s business environment, the Internet should be a core component. Everyone in the company should be mindful of and take part in the Internet strategy, which must permeate every department.

Continue reading ‘Disintermediation’

(The following is a condensed version of my talk on how to improve your blogging skills during the Visayas Blogging Summit last Saturday. The summit was well-attended and had several corporate sponsors, an indication that blogging has indeed gone mainstream in Cebu)

WHAT’s the goal of effective blogging? What should you strive for if you want to build a blog following beyond your circle of family and friends?

Make it worth readers’ time

Why should readers take time to visit your blog? Why should people read your article? Today’s high-paced, technology-driven culture offers a lot of distractions. There are billions of web pages on the Internet. Why should people, who are not your friends or relatives, take time to read your blog?

People visit a blog or read an article because of either or both of two things: 1) they’ll learn something from it, or 2) they’ll enjoy the experience of reading it. Strive to provide both but one out of two isn’t bad.

Continue reading ‘Becoming a better blogger’

The company started by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and programming genius Justin Rosenstein opened to the public last week its productivity product Asana, a web application that allows users to manage teams and projects.

Moskovitz is listed by Forbes as the world’s youngest billionaire, being eight days younger than Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, owing to the success of the social networking site. He was Facebook’s first chief technology officer before becoming vice president of engineering.

Rosenstein, on the other hand, led the team that built Facebook’s Like button, Bloomberg Businessweek said.

Dustin Moskovitz wants the Asana application (above) to serve as “a home screen for work in the same way that Facebook is a home screen for goofing off.” (CLICK ON PHOTO TO VIEW LARGER IMAGE)

Continue reading ‘Manage your projects, tasks with Asana’

Beware of geeks bearing gifts.

A man in New York City has reportedly caught his wife cheating using the Find My Friends app of the iPhone 4S he gave her.

Find My Friends uses global positioning system (GPS) to let people share their locations with friends. The locations of people are indicated by a tooltip on a satellite map. And since the app uses GPS, the locations are accurate up to several meters.

According to a post in a Mac website message board, a New York City man bought his wife a new iPhone 4S and installed Find My Friends without informing her. He said he had suspicions his wife was meeting a man who lived uptown. His suspicion was confirmed by Find My Friends, who showed her there. He then texted her to ask where she was and she answered that she was with friends in a completely different location.

He said he would be using the data he gathered to divorce his wife. “Thankfully, she’s the rich one,” he said.

There is no definite confirmation of the incident but the post shows the extent of location data gathered by consumer devices like smartphones.

FINDING PEOPLE. The Find My Friends app for the iPhone allows people to share location data with friends.

Continue reading ‘Location, location, location’