I wanted to get this out before the keynote, otherwise, its meaningless. I’ve been stalking, uh, I mean following, yeah…following… a number of people on Twitter that are “in the biz.”  Leo LaPorte, John Devorak, and Molly Wood of C-Net’s Buzz Out Loud Podcast, are but a few of the people that I follow on a daily basis. (Molly, BTW, is an absolute HOOT!  LOVE the podcast!)

Anyway, I’m at my computer last night, writing a few columns (check back in a few days for the first to post), and I got a TWEET from Molly Wood on the new 3G iPhone.  According to some of her sources, the 3G iPhone WILL have the following features:

• GPS
• 3G (obviously)
• 32GB of Storage
• A $300 price tag

According to her sources, it should hit general availability in 2 weeks.  I know that I will be sitting ont he giddy-up waiting for all of the news, as well as the ability to buy one of these guys as soon as they are available. I wonder how long I will actually have to wait; or if Apple is going to insure that there’s enough of these puppies available that anyone that wants one is going to be able to get one?

I wonder if I should get in line now..?

I don’t know about you, but I think WebIS has some of the best software available for the Pocket PC/WM platform. I live and die by my calendar, so Pocket Informant has been a staple in my Pocket Outlook arsenal since, like 2001 or so. 

I just got some interesting news… Alex at WebIS will be releasing new versions of both FlexMail and Pocket Informant in the imediate future.  What’s so hot about that… oh, nothing, except that the release of PI will include versions for both BlackBerry and iPhone.

Check it out..!

UPDATE: FlexMail 4 is available now. Upgrades are very generous with FlexMail 4: Free upgrades to purchases after April 1st 2007 and $16.95 before that. Its well worth upgrading! Before upgrading, please take a look at the new PDF Documentation to read the upgrade instructions.

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Comcast wants to bring social networking to a set-top box near you…

I am a networking junkie. I’ve learned over the past couple of years that what you know isn’t always as important as who you know.  While social networking can be fun, in many ways I see it as just a quicker way of showering the people you know and love with those forwarded jokes you’ve been deleting from your inbox…at least, that’s been my experience. Social networking…not so much.  Professional networking..?  Oh yeah, I’m all over that.

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If you’re a Mac user, and there are a growing number of us these days, then you probably know that Apple shipped Security Update 2008-003 (Mac OS X 10.5.3) yesterday with fixes for a wide range of serious vulnerabilities (it includes 41 fixes) that could put users at risk of information disclosure, denial-of-service and remote code execution attacks.

This one is important, folks, so if you haven’t installed it already, then you either need to click the link above and download it, or run Software Update from the Apple menu and run the Software Update tool manually.

I’m not going to bore everyone with all of the gory details on what this thing contains (I actually don’t have the time, as I am at work and need to get back to it; BUT thought this important enough to let everyone know…), because I just don’t have the time.  However, if you have a Mac, and don’t have it installed, you best get to clickin’.

I’ve been wondering lately if Microsoft needs a lesson in Software Development 101…

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been watching the fiasco that is Windows XP SP3 play out.  With so many problem reports hitting Microsoft, their Vendor-Partners, and eventually, the news, you would think that a little preventative medicine would have been applied to the situation. And honestly, it’s really making me wonder – did MS and their V-P’s do enough testing before kicking XP SP3 and Vista SP1 out the door?  With all of the crap that’s been hitting the blogosphere, it’s pretty obvious… Nope.

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Right now, AT&T has refurbished AT&T Tilts for $149.99, when you sign up for a 2 year contract, or are eligible for a device upgrade. That’s about 63% off the full retail price of $399.99. I picked one up last week and got the holiday weekend to play with it.  The device is pretty cool; and offers a great deal, tilt novelty aside (though as Clinton put it, its pretty cool when you’re trying to get rid of glare outside…).

If you’re interested, you’d better hurry over to AT&T and pick one up while supplies last. They are likely going to go pretty quickly; and I understand that there is going to be an official WM 6.1 upgrade available for it from AT&T.

Link: AT&T Refurb

Speculation, speculation… I wonder who’s going to take the Vista plunge…or not. 

Over the last few weeks, there’s been a lot of chatter over operating systems.  Who’s ready for this SP, or that, on this OS or the other… Who’s going to install them or wait it out for a while…that type of thing. I’ve heard a people grimacing over XP EOL and Vista, as well.  What is even more interesting is that some of my IT management team has been saying that they may blow by Vista entirely in favor of Windows 7.

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Speculation abounds this week as a little known item hits the iPhone Online Store across the US and the UK.  No, I’m not breaking news about the availability of the version 2.0 device (though I wish I could…). I’m merely pointing out that the current generation 8GB and 16GB iPhones are no longer available for purchase via Apple’s Online Store.

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XP SP3 WAS released, but got pulled; and then got released again.

I’ve been following this on and off, and it seems to me to be one of the MOST comical configuration and release management related issues I’ve bumped into in a long time. I should know, too. As a Software QA Director, I’ve been responsible not only for Test, but CM and RM as well.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see situations like the XP SP3 and Vista SP1 release issues we have (BTW, Vista SP1 is also on hold…AGAIN!) in small companies, but to see them in a retail giant like Microsoft is really bothersome…especially when the entire world runs their businesses on Microsoft software.

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… Breley!  He’s the winner of a very gently used, E-TEN X800 courtesy of E-TEN and Gear Diary!

I’ve reprinted his story here for everyone to read:

This actually occurred a week ago. I took my wife, my 7-year-old son, and our 2 month-old-son out for a walk in the park, so to speak. I decided to take my X7501 along and use my GPS software to find some Geocaches. The local park we chose has about 6 caches, plug a multicache. My older son and I were dutifully following the GPS coordinates, easily finding a few of the caches.

It was a great early evening…sunny, 74 degrees, so we enjoyed every minute of it. We were making good time and took the path less traveled to reach a particular cache. The wife and newborn stayed on the white gravel path and my older son and I scrounged around in the underbrush. The cache had to be here! The GPS says so. Unfortunately, on closer examination I noticed the internal gps had dropped the satellite signal and somehow the screen stopped animating and the cache image on the screen was in fact waaaaay behind us. We had overshot it. To make matters worse, it was getting darker, and we had about 2 miles to walk back to the car. And for any one you with small children, you quickly find out they have small bladders. “Where can I go pee, daddy???!” my son wailed. “Can your GPS point out a restroom?” my now-irritated wife asked sarcastically. Ignoring the remark, I gave my son a quick lesson on how to water the nearest tree. Whew! At least we got that out of the way.

Half-way back to the car it got VERY dark, late twilight to be sure. Unfortunately, our larval offspring #2 decided it was time to announce in his wailing siren of a coughing cry that it was time for mom to dispense proprietary dairy product. Luckily for us, the white gravel was quite visible and easy to follow and we found a bench. Nothing like the blind leading the blind, but the X7501 gave off sufficient light that I could use it as a makeshift flashlight to aid in food dispersal. Normally I bring a small flashlight when hiking, but somehow forgot this time. Doh!
We made it back finally in nearly pitch black conditions. Back at the car I examined the X7501 more closely to see what the matter was with the earlier screen freeze: it was a reminder that had popped up underneath reminding me to bring a flashlight. I had forgotten to dismiss it properly!

I want to thank everyone who entered. Picking a single winner was difficult.  I had to read through things 2 and 3 times before I could single one out, they were all so good!  I also want to thank E-TEN for graciously providing the X800 for us to review.

Breley, we’ll be contacting you shortly with instructions on how to claim your prize!