Although most people use Facebook to keep in touch with their family and friends, Facebook fan pages are a great way for you to keep in touch with your customers.

When someone on your personal Facebook page leaves a comment for you on your wall, by default, you’ll be notified of this via email.

Unfortunately this is not the case for fan pages.  Facebook currently acknowledge that this functionality is not currently available.

Do Facebook seriously expect us to have to manually monitor every single fan page we create every single day?  This is beyond a joke and needs to be fixed immediately.

There are a bunch of people already trying to persuade Facebook of how important this functionality is in one of the Facebook discussion forums.

I’m adding a helping hand myself, and have created the following YouTube video which explains everything clearly, tells you a potential work-around, and also tells you the two action items we need to take to try to get Facebook to come to their senses and provide us with viable email notification options.

Here are the links to the two suggested action items mentioned in the video:

• leave a comment on the discussion thread
• submit a suggestion to Facebook, asking for email notification options for fan pages, and add a link back to the discussion thread mentioned above within the details of the message

Please pass around links to this blog post or the YouTube video, and let’s get Facebook to come to their senses and give us this much needed functionality.

Facebook fan page email notifications are BADLY needed is a post from: Tech-Informer.com

Windows Mobile 7, which has been rebranded to a new name of “Windows Phone 7 Series”, is a completely redesigned system.

Ok, let me voice a few gripes I have with just that initial paragraph content.

Firstly, if you are going to completely redesign something from the ground up, and on top of that you’re going to be choosing a new brand name for what you’ve just built, then you can’t call it “series 7” rather than “version 1.0”.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand how most people are nervous about a 1.0 release, and it may be better to tell them that it’s really a version 7 release, but you and I both know that this is BS.

If you look at the interface, it seems that they heavily borrowed code from the Zune HD, so a name such as “Zune Phone” may have been a much better fit.

Secondly, I can’t help but keep wanting to slap Microsoft around every time they come out with one of these awful long-winded names.  This would have been a great time to choose a nice and catchy short name.

“iPhone” vs “Windows Phone 7 Series”.  The latter really rolls nicely off the tongue, right?  I guess I should be happy they didn’t call it “Windows Zune Phone 7 Mobile Edition with Software Assurance”.

For the sake of simplicity, I’ll call it just “Windows Phone” for the rest of this article.

Windows Phone is new from the ground up

I’ve never had any issues expressing my contempt for all prior versions of Windows Mobile.  Microsoft thought they could simply redeploy the Windows user experience into a phone in order to make it a familiar experience for users.  The implementation of this strategy was nothing short of terrible.

I also found using a stylus extremely frustrating.

The great news is that Windows Phone is a completely re-engineered phone operating system from the ground up.

Microsoft have borrowed some design aspects from Apple (simplicity / minimalism), mixed it in with their Zune HD technology, and have now come out with a minimalist, clean, modern and funky interface which is vastly superior to any prior version of Windows Mobile.

That being said, I’m not sure I’m a fan of the new design.  Having some of the letters of main screen headings sliced off and seeing the first two letters of every sentence on the adjacent screen is definitely different, but to me it doesn’t provide a clean and simple look.

My gut reaction is feeling that the screen resolution isn’t sized properly and it just doesn’t feel right.  Perhaps I’m just not artistic enough to appreciate this…

Here’s a 22 minute video showing you the user interface in detail.  Note that you’ll need Silverlight for this.

Consistent user experience across vendor phones

Prior versions of Windows Mobile allowed phone hardware vendors to completely customize the phone experience to their liking, using Windows Mobile as a base.

Microsoft have realized that it’s important to keep a consistent and uniform user experience across all of the vendor phones, so they are now imposing rules and guidelines which phone vendors have to abide by.  Phone vendors will be able to add extensions to Windows Phone, but the user experience and user interface will need to remain consistent.  All phones will also need to have 3 hardware buttons: one for “back”, one for “home” and one for “search”.

No desktop sync software for contacts/email/calendar

There is no longer any desktop sync software for contacts, email or appointments via ActiveSync.  These items are now synchronized over the air with the cloud.  Music and video sync comes through the Zune Desktop software.

Note that the Zune Desktop software will only work on PCs (no Mac support).

Internet browser

As you’d expect, the built-in internet browser is Internet Explorer.

Microsoft also go out of their way in telling you that it’s based on the same code of the full desktop Internet Explorer client.

I’m not so sure they should be calling this a “benefit”.

Initial trials suggest that the this mobile version of Internet Explorer won’t be as fast as the browsers available on the iPhone or Android phones.

Integration with MS Office

Not many details have been made available about the integration with Microsoft Office applications yet, but the screenshots suggest integration with both MS Office apps such as OneNote, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, as well as integration with Microsoft Sharepoint Server (for business intranets).

Prior Windows Mobile apps will not port

Since this is a completely redesigned platform, Microsoft have decided that prior Windows Mobile apps will not be able to be ported across to the Windows Phone.

Microsoft are hoping that developers see potential in the Windows Phone, and will start coding apps for the release of Windows Phone at the end of the year.

Zune integration for music and videos

When it comes to videos and music, Windows Phone pretty much borrows an identical interface to that of the Zune HD.

You can also hook it up to your Zune Desktop software to sync content, and your Zune Pass subscription to get streamed content.  For those of you unfamiliar with Zune Pass, this is a subscription service where you pay $15/month, and get unlimited music streaming plus 10 songs to download to your phone per month.

Xbox Live integration for games

When it comes to gaming, Microsoft see this as a social experience, and are now integrating the Xbox Live service, which currently has 23 million members, with the Windows Phone.

This will allow you to interact with any other Xbox Live user, be they on a Windows Phone, or on an Xbox.

No flash in the initial release

The Windows Phone will not support Adobe’s Flash technology in the initial release of the product.  Microsoft have stated that they do plan to support Flash though, but in an upcoming release/update of the Windows Phone rather than in the initial release.

No multi-tasking

There is no multi-tasking available on the Windows Phone.  You’re basically just using one app at a time, just like you do on an iPhone.

I do like that they have a “back” button though, which means that you can go back in your history of used apps simply by clicking on the back button, rather than having to first go back to the home screen and then re-launching the prior app.

8 months until launch

The buzz on Microsoft’s launch of the Windows Phone is very positive.

Microsoft plan to launch this towards the end of the year, which means that’s still around 8 or so months away.

Why would Microsoft launch a new device with such a long lag time until release?  There’s likely a few reasons for this, the main two being:

• Developers need time to create apps for this new platform
• If the launch is successful, as it seems to be, then people may decide to hold off on buying a new Android or Apple phone until they have a chance to review this new device

Note that in June or so Apple are expected to release their iPhone 4G, and it’s likely that there may be a new Google Android phone within that timeframe as well.

What about custom apps?

The Apple store currently has around 140,000 apps and may have close to 200,000 apps by the end of the year.  This can be amplified further by the launch of the iPad in March, since apps for the iPhone can be natively ported to the iPad.  No matter what anyone else says, applications matter.  Apps are perhaps one of the major reasons for iPhone’s success, and will likely be a key factor in determining who will dominate the mobile market.

Microsoft have not yet made any announcements whatsoever regarding custom apps, other than that they encourage developers to get onboard and start coding.

Is it too late for a 3rd player in the mobile market?

It’s quite possible that Microsoft are once again too late to come to market with their brand in the phone market.  If we look at what happened in the music market, even though the Zune HD is quite a nice device, Apple already dominate the music market with their iPod and iPhone.  It’s unlikely that the Zune HD will make much of a dent in the market.  The same thing could happen with the Windows Phone.

On the flip side of things, Microsoft are very patient and are willing to throw a lot of money at this market.  Microsoft spent a billion dollars on the Xbox and took close to 10 years to become the main player in the game console market.  So if they are serious about wanting a big portion of the mobile phone market, then it’s likely that in time they may do so.  Note that their main competitors are Apple and Google, both of which have as much (if not more) cash than Microsoft, so it may be a tough battle to win.

Summing up

Overall, Windows Phone Series 7 is a huge step forward for Microsoft’s mobile division.  I’m very glad to see the old Windows Mobile technology thrown out and starting from scratch with something new.

I’m also very glad to see Microsoft moving towards a simpler, more minimalist user interface design.

I don’t believe this trumps the iPhone 3GS, let alone whatever Apple have in store for us with the upcoming release of the iPhone 4G in June/July.

When Google released the Nexus One many thought that Google had effectively killed Microsoft’s chance of being a main competitor in the mobile market.  Windows Phone 7 Series represents Microsoft being “born again” and establishing itself as the third dominant power in the mobile market.

It now seems that the mobile industry will be dominated Apple, Google and Microsoft.  I don’t see RIM’s Blackberry smart phones surviving more than a few years, and I also predict that Palm will die off as well.

Windows Mobile 7 completely re-invents itself is a post from: Tech-Informer.com

It’s nice seeing demos of the Apple iPad, but you never know if the demo looks great because of being a great product or if the demo looks great just due to the fact that it was carefully prepared.

So if you’re a fellow cynic like me, then you may be interested in watching these two live hands-on demos, recorded by real people just having a play with the iPad.

You can now also watch the full Apple iPad launch event from yesterday.

Demo 1:

Demo 2:

Demo 3:

Demo 4:

Apple iPad: some live hands-on demos is a post from: Tech-Informer.com

Today Apple released their highly anticipated tablet device, which they named the iPad.  To me, this name is too similar to iPod; iSlate or iTablet would have been better.

In a nutshell, think of this device as a huge iPod Touch.

Let’s go over some of the features of this device.

9.7 inch, multi-touch, LED-backlit, IPS display

The iPad screen is stunning.  At 9.7 inches, it’s the same screen size as the Kindle DX, but it supports 1024 x 768 pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch.

The LED-backlit screen means that the screen can be viewed both indoors and outside in sunlight.

The IPS (in-plane switching) technology allows a viewing angle of 178 degrees, meaning that you can look at it from almost any angle and still see a crisp image.

Like the iPhone, the iPad supports multi-touch gestures, making the device very intuitive to use.

Web browsing experience

Having the Safari browser displayed within the 9.7” display means that you can easily view the entire web page, without needing to constantly pinch and zoom as you do on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

The accelerometer is also extremely fast, meaning that you get an instant response from the iPad when you tilt the device from portrait mode to landscape mode.

10 hour battery

The success of the iPad was largely going to be dependent on its battery life.

In a surprise move, Apple claim that you will get 10 hours battery life while browsing the web on wifi or watching videos, and up to a month of standby time.

Very nice!

Performance

Everyone was very pleasantly surprised at how fast response was on the iPad.

Full blown games worked seamlessly, and all of the applications were extremely snappy.

Apple attribute these improvements to their new custom-designed 1 GHz A4 chip, which is the brains of the iPad.

The fact that a chip this powerful can also give you 10 hours of battery life is also quite a pleasant surprise.

eMail

The mail application has been improved, such that while in landscape mode you can see a 2 pane view with your inbox on the left, and the selected message on the right.

If you tilt the device into portrait mode, this results in zooming in to the selected message, and everything else gets out of the way.

Typing email is also enhanced due to having a large on-screen keyboard, with keys which are almost the same size of a physical keyboard.  The keyboard doesn’t have any sensory feedback mechanisms though.

Photos

There’s a very slick photo application which makes managing your photos a joy to use.

They have ported over many of the features available in Apple’s iPhoto product (faces, locations, stacks) over to the iPad.

The slideshows available are also extremely attractive.

You can even use the iPad as a digital photo frame, displaying one of your selected slideshows, which you charge the device.

Video

The will be THE device you’ll want to have when travelling and you want to watch any kind of video.

The iPad’s dimensions aren’t quite 16:9, which means that you can either watch it in native 16:9 aspect ratio and have some black bands on the top/bottom, or double-tap to zoom into the video and get a slightly cropped video.

I don’t consider this a big deal, since the overall viewing experience is significantly better than anything else on the market.

YouTube

I like the convenience of having YouTube on my iPhone, but to be honest I don’t really use it that much due to the very poor video quality even when using Wifi rather than 3G.

The iPad changes all of this.

You can now even watch HD YouTube videos in excellent resolution.

The YouTube application itself has been revamped on the iPad, giving it a very clean and elegant look.

iPod

The iPod application has also been revamped on the iPad.

Clean and elegant looks here as well.

Both wired and bluetooth wireless headsets are supported.

We all know that the speakers on the iPhone suck.  I’m hoping that the speakers on the iPad are significantly better.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

iTunes

Get access to music, TV shows, podcasts and movies.

All of this can be done directly from the iPad via your Wifi or 3G connection, or it can also be synced with iTunes running on your desktop computer.

The interface has also been revamped, but there’s nothing much to mention about this.

App Store

The iPad will allow you to tap into the existing App store, which implies that you’ll have access to over 140,000 existing applications (and growing by 10,000 to 20,000 apps per month).

All of these existing apps will run natively on your iPad.  The issue, of course, is that of resolution.

These native apps, which were created in order to run on iPhones and iPod Touch devices, will run in their “small form factor” size on the iPad.

You’ll then be able to hit a “2X” button on the screen which will double the resolution of this app, making it almost fill up the iPad screen.

Some apps will look just plain weird in this larger resolution, but most apps will still be very useable.

Artificially doubling the resolution will also imply that the crispness of the image will degrade, making some apps look slightly blurry.  But again, based on the demos shown, the blurriness is hardly noticeable.

As time goes by, developers will create native iPad applications, and also tweak their existing apps in order to support both the small and large resolution types, which will result in all apps looking great on both iPhones and iPads.

This is a great strategy for Apple, since it will imply that any other competitor will find it extremely difficult to compete with Apple due to the massive size and growth of the App Store.

iBooks and the iBook store

The iBooks app is a great way to read and buy books.

Definitely much sexier than anything else out there.

Book text is extremely crisp, the pagination animation looks like you really are turning a page in a physical book, and even the display itself makes it appear that you are reading a physical book by giving it a 3D feel.

Apple are also launching a new iBook store, and will hope to also become the dominant player for all ebook content.

This will be an interesting battle to watch, since Amazon already have over 400,000 Kindle ebooks available in their Kindle store.  Remember that you can also download the Kindle reader application for your PC, Mac and even your iPhone/Touch/iPad, since there’s a Kindle app in the Apple App Store.

We’ll have to see how the battle plays out between Amazon’s Kindle store and Apple’s iBook store.

Maps

There’s not that much new functionality is the maps application, other than it is displayed in a much larger screen in high resolution.

High resolution imagery, such as satellite view or street view looks excellent on the iPad.

Actual use of the application itself is also extremely quick and responsive.

Calendar and Contacts

The calendar and contacts apps look extremely polished, and I see many people throwing out their conventional organizers/planners in favor of the iPad.

Home screen

The home screen does look elegant and polished, but I am concerned that it fits 20 apps per screen, exactly the same as on the iPhone.

I’m sure I’m not the typical iPhone user, but I’ve more than maxed out the amount of applications I can have installed and displayed on my iPhone.

The iPhone currently supports 4 apps per row, 5 rows per page, and 11 pages of apps.  This comes to a total of 220 apps.  That may seem like a lot of apps, but when you consider that there are over 140,000 apps available and around 15,000 new ones every month, then it becomes very easy to fill up your 220 app slots.

Whenever I want to add a new app to my iPhone (frequently!), I have to figure out which other existing app I’ve got to remove in order to make room for the new one.

There’s plenty of “gap space” available between the apps as they are displayed on the iPad’s home screen, so I hope that there are more than 11 app pages made available.  My feeling is that it will be exactly the same as the iPhone, implying that the limite of 220 apps will remain.

Spotlight search

Spotlight search is exactly the same as it is now on the iPhone.

It allows you to easily search across all of your apps, email, notes, contacts and calendar items.

Very useful, but nothing new to see here.

Keynote, Pages, and Numbers

Apple are also introducing custom versions of Keynote (Powerpoint competitor), Pages (Word competitor), and Numbers (Excel competitor) specifically for the iPad.

Each application will cost $10.

These apps will definitely come in handy, since you’ll be able to start creating mock-ups of presentations, documents and spreadsheets and then polish them up once you’re back on your desktop computer.

It will also allow you to modify existing productivity documents while on the run, and allow you to deliver a Keynote presentation simply by hooking up the connector for a display output.

Wireless, 3G, and a digital compass

The iPad will support 802.11n, in order to take advantage of the latest wireless technology.

It will also come in an upgraded model which will support wireless 3G, allowing you to connect to the Internet from almost anywhere.

Apple have negotiated deals with AT&T, where you can get an unlimited 3G data download plan for $30/month.  You also aren’t locked into a service contract. You can cancel at any time.  On top of that, the SIM is unlocked, meaning you can use whichever provider you like, as long as they support microSIMs.

The iPad will also come with a built-in compass, but notice that it won’t have native GPS.  It will have “assisted GPS” which it will obtain by leveraging either wireless or 3G connections.

Accessories

I’m sure that as time goes by there will be a whole slew of accessories made available for the iPad, but we’re already off to a good start here.

The first accessory is a dock for the iPad.

The second accessory is a keyboard dock.  Note that the iPad will also work with an Apple Wireless keyboard as well since it supports Bluetooth 2.1.

There is a camera connection kit, which enables you to hook up the iPad to an SD card slot reader.

My favorite is the iPad Case, which is not only a nice looking carry case, but also doubles up as a device to prop up the iPad to make viewing a video or typing more comfortable.

There are also various accessories which will enable the iPad to output to TVs, projectors and external displays.

So what’s missing?

Even though the iPad looks amazing, there are definitely some additional features which many were hoping for.

The iPad does not have a camera.  Imagine how cool this device would be to do Skype video chats.

As mentioned above, there is no native GPS module contained within the iPad.

Safari still doesn’t support Flash content.

There are no advanced notification capabilities.

There is also no sign of any multi-tasking capabilities.

It’s quite possible that some of the above features may be made available via the iPhone version 4 software upgrade which is rumored to be close to release.

Netbooks vs iPad

Doing a quick custom configuration of a Dell mini 10, with a built-in GPS, TV tuner, bluetooth, 160GB SATA hard drive, 1 GB RAM and Windows XP Home, this came to a total of $494.

So here we have a netbook priced at the same level as that of the iPad, where I can run absolutely anything I want.  There are many other examples of netbooks which appear to be more functional and cheaper than the iPad.

The thing is that it comes down to the user experience.  The user experience on the iPad will be far better than that of a netbook experience.

A netbook at the same or slightly cheaper price point than that of the iPad won’t be able to compete.

I believe that the iPad is going to kill off the netbook market.

WIll the iPad mean death to the Amazon Kindle?

It will certainly mean death to the Kindle DX, currently priced at $489.

The entry-level iPad is priced at $499, so there is no reason whatsoever for choosing a Kindle DX over the iPad at the same price point.

The original Kindle (with a 6 inch display) is priced at $259, which is half the price of the iPad, so it’s possible that this device may survive.

The reality is that the Kindle is just a good e-reader.  The iPad is SO much more.  Would people be willing to pay twice the price for a device which not only is a better e-reader but also performs all of the features mentioned above?  I think so.

By releasing the entry-level iPad at $499, I believe Apple have effectively killed the Kindle today.  Kindle, may you rest in peace.

The bigger question will be whether Amazon’s Kindle store will survive the attack now led by Apple’s iBook store.  Remember, there’s nothing stopping us from reading Kindle books on the iPad, since there’s a Kindle Reader app available.

The iPad will be made available at the end of March 2010.

Apple iPad: a Kindle killer? is a post from: Tech-Informer.com

Push email is when your mobile will notify you that you have a new email the second it arrives in your inbox.

I’ve never had a big need for push email.  I don’t want to be interrupted 100 times a day with the emails coming into my inbox.  I prefer to manually fetch email a couple of times a day.

I did have a need to keep my calendar and contacts in sync from my iPhone to my Google Apps account though.  The way I’ve had this configured for the past year or so was:

• create an email account on my iPhone linked to Gmail (which accepts a connection profile to Google Apps as well)
• create a second email account to the free service hosted by NuevaSync, which enables you to get live sync for your contacts and calendar between the iPhone and Gmail/GApps.  This second account is configured to sync calendar and contacts but not email.

The above has worked perfectly for me for the past year.  The only downside is that it doesn’t support push mail, but as mentioned, for me this wasn’t a big deal at all.

Today I was catching up on some blog reading, and I found out that you can now do push mail, contacts and calendar sync natively from almost any mobile to Google.

Setup was very simple.

I started off by deleting my existing 2 mail accounts on my iPhone (Gmail account and NuevaSync account).

You then need to enable Google Sync services on your Google Apps account.  To do this go to your Google Apps dashboard, and select Mobile.

Enable Google Sync:

Then click on the link directly next to the above checkbox which says “Learn how to set it up on your device”, and follow those instructions in order to set up your mobile device with the required connection settings.

I had everything set up in under 5 minutes.

I now have native push email, contacts and calendars sync between my iPhone and my Google Apps account.  And all of this for free.  Thanks Google.

[Image courtesy of William Hook]

Get push email, contacts and calendar to your mobile with Gmail or Google Apps is a post from: Tech-Informer.com

Here’s a good intro video explaining the concept behind the new Google Chrome operating system, which was released today.

A more technical summary of what it is:

• a Chrome browser running on an optimized Linux kernel
• the built-in operating system is automatically kept up to date and/or repaired from the cloud (can even be entirely re-imaged from the cloud)
• initial bootup takes mere seconds
• supports only solid-state storage
• will read data from USB storage devices (memory sticks, cameras, etc)
• all user data will be stored in the cloud
• will cache user data locally and encrypt it
• built to be fast, simple, and secure
• it will only run web applications
• the root partition of the device’s drive is read-only, preventing any application from changing the core code

Although you’ll hear people saying things such as “this is going to kill Microsoft”, I don’t feel this is going to happen any time soon.

Google Chrome OS will be a great to have on your netbook, and that’s exactly what Google will be focusing on at this point in time.  Google are not looking to replace your home/business desktop computer operating system….at least not yet.

The web browser application experience is getting more and more interactive and powerful.  The advent of HTML5 is only going to speed things up even more.  We already have powerful applications we can run in the browser, which historically required a full blown computer, such as Google Docs or Zoho.  Even Microsoft themselves will be releasing a web based version of Office 2010.

It won’t be long before we can do almost anything using cloud-based applications.

More resource intensive applications, such as high-end gaming, CAD, and video editing will likely take a few years before we see viable cloud-based options start to appear.

So the Google Chrome operating systems isn’t going to become the new default operating system which will rule the world, but it just might become the operating system to rule all netbooks in a very short amount of time.

Update: here are some step-by-step instructions on how to install Chrome OS into a virtual machine.

What is Google Chrome OS? is a post from: Tech-Informer.com