Same Voice – New Site, davidebowman.com

I would like to announce the launch of my new site – davidebowman.com

The site has been up for a little over a week now, and I am starting to get it good and populated with delicious and tasty morsels of content. There are podcasts, marketing news, observations on life, cool tech links, and various fun posts. The look and feel is very different, but the content will be similar – only more of it more often. I hope that you will visit it, favorite it, and share it with others you know. Please subscribe to the rss link, or if you prefer email – there is a subscription field in the top left where you can get the latest and greatest posts right in your inbox. Please take a look and let me know what you think – oh yeah, there is also a contact form where making your feedback known is easy. Thanks.

DAVIDeBOWMAN

Save Time and Do More – Jott.com

This is a test post to my Blog from jott.com. I’m making this post on my mobile phone using jott.com. listen
Powered by Jott

I discovered today that it’s possible to post to my blog from Jott.com. If you are not familiar with Jott.com, well…it is one of the most amazing and useful services that you can find. Jott offers free voice to text translation. So when you are in your car and think of that great idea, simply call Jott, leave a message, and voila – you get an email with both a text transcription of your message as well as the original audio. Now for safety and convenience, I recommend putting it in your speed dial – mine is in speed dial 9.  (Goog411, the other most amazing phone tool I know of, is speed dial 4.)  Well, as I stated above, Jott can not only send you an email message, but you can also use it to send messages to others and post directly to Google Calendar, WordPress Blogs, Toodledo, Remember the Milk, Twitter, and numerous other web tools.  Jott is one of the rare productivity tools that actually might make you more productive.  What tools will you use to make 2008 your most productive year yet?

More 2007 Greatness: Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals – Lifeline

For well over a decade Ben Harper has been pushing the boundaries of music. He regularly experiments with genres and styles, all the while, bringing his own signature soulful sound to the mix. In 2007 Ben hooked up with his longtime band, the Innocent Criminals, and released “Lifeline”. This album comes on the heels of his brilliant 2006 double album “Both Sides of A Gun,” which was edgy, political, and very much right in your face. In contrast, Lifeline is a more soulful, melodic, uplifting album – and perhaps even more brilliant that its predecessor. The album evokes warm sounds of Ray Charles, the 70′s era Rolling Stones, the Black Crowes, Van Morrison, and Otis Redding. In typical Ben Harper form, the lyrics are brilliant and meaningful, the arrangements are exceptional, and the songs are creative, catchy, and inspirational. I have used the album’s first track “Fight Outta You” to pull me out of many an early morning funk. There is a great lyric in the chorus of that song that really speaks to me “I would rather take your punch, than not give you a shot… I’d rather find out who you are than who you’re not.” This one is well worth the 12 bucks. Was this one of your favorites of 2007? What other albums, songs or books moved you and why?

The Official Ben Harper Website : Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals

Making the Cut (and Paste) – Kwout

Thanks, yet again, to Lifehacker for the tip on the awesome web based cut and paste tool, Kwout. With Kwout, you simply place a bookmark, which they provide for you on their site, in your toolbar, and then when you see an image or piece of a web site that you want to grab click on the button. Next you simply highlight the area of the page you want to feature, and Kwout spits out the code you need to copy the area anywhere. It will even embed links with the area you select. This tools is extremely simple to use, and is quite useful. I am looking forward to more of trying out Kwout – a brilliant way to quote.

 

Milk Fortified with Vitamin G – Remember the Milk integrates with Gmail

I was scanning the latest posts from the Google Operating System blog today only to realize that Remember the Milk – an awesome, web based, task management tool – now has the ability to integrate directly into Gmail. It looks as this is the first step towards integrating task management into Gmail, which hopefully will happen in 2008. The ability to use Remember the Milk within Gmail is wonderful in that you can easily move from email to tasks in one place. So many of the emails I receive have some “to do” item that results, which forces me to either have an inbox cluttered with old emails to serve as reminders, or to leave my mail to enter or complete a task somewhere else. This all in one solution, though not perfect, will help to reduce distraction, eliminate duplication of efforts, and better organize my busy life. Remember the Milk also integrates into the igoogle homepage and google calendar, both of which I use daily. I look forward to further integration of tasks into Gmail and Gcal. What do you think of Remember the Milk, Gmail, Gcal, and what do you hope to see in the near future of task management?

Remember the Googley Milk

End Package Rage with a Can Opener

One of the best Christmas gifts I received this year came in the form of a blog post from Lifehacker. As a dad, I am tasked with the unenviable task of opening presents for my children. This typically results in spilled coffee, wounded appendages, swearing, and other less than ideal Christmas parenting moments. Besides the ridiculous use of use of twist ties and fastening devices, the most common culprit for package rage has been the Clamshell Package. This molded plastic nemesis has been the downfall of many a skilled father. No amount of pulling, twisting, tearing, chopping, and or tugging seems to weaken the Clamshell – until now. Lifehacker unveiled what amounts to Clam Shell Kryptonite, the simple handheld Can Opener. It is as easy as this. Take the Clamshell Package. Clamp the can opener at a point on the edge of it. Twist it, just like you are cranking open a can of beenie weenies, and voila. Package Opened. It is amazing. For a dad, this is one of the best Christmas gifts I could have received. In fact, as Christmas went on with extended family, my eyes lit up every time someone had a Clam Shell package – giving me an opportunity to share my newly learned skill. Thanks Lifehacker for once again making my life better.

Clever Uses: Open Clamshell Packaging with a Can Opener

Berry Christmas: Google Sync

Before the iphone, we were the “cool kids.” You know us, we’re BlackBerry owners. Well as we BlackBerry users wait for our contracts to expire and iphone prices to continue to fall, here is a great new application from Google. It is Google Sync – a free program that keeps the Blackberry Calendar in sync with the web based Google Calendar. I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this application since I bought my BlackBerry last year. While I try to keep most of my information in a web based environment, there are times when I need the speed of desktop (or phone top) access. For example, you are sitting across the table from a client and they ask, “When can we get together again?” Rather than having to go through the process of jumping on the net, logging in, scrolling to the right time frame, and then entering the data, I can simply check the desktop calendar and go. The real beauty is that because the software auto-syncs to my BlackBerry to my GCal, I am always up to speed on where to be and when. Oh the nerdy things that excite me! Not sure if I should celebrate or cry. Alas, this is a great app – worth checking out.

There are also a number of other new desktop applications for BlackBerry that can be downloaded from Google. Picassa, Reader, Docs, and more – now with desktop icons for the mobile device. Stay up to date on all of them by subscribing to the Google Mobile Blog.  Merry Christmas to all. (Is that on the 25th this year?…let me check my calendar…yep!) and to all a good night.

Mobile