A good CMS allows the designer and developer to create a foundation and a frame so that the client, content provider, can fill it with what they want. I showed him a demo backend of how easy it was going to be to make a new entry, create a poll, and to even add testimonials to his site. All he needed to do was fill out a form and the CMS setup by me will format and do everything for him. Sure I could have made him a static page and been done already, but neither him nor I would want to deal with each other every time he wanted to add anything.

I may not be the most experienced in web design but I’ve played with enough of these systems to know their strengths and weaknesses. now a quick run down:

• Joomla: I don’t like joomla.
• Modx: great for PHP developers, very open but not the most intuitive or best for non techie clients, trust me.
• Wordpress: great for blogging out of the box, but tends to get over complicated when doing dynamic complex content.
• Expression Engine: overkill for a plain blog (IMHO) great for the more complex site that has dynamic content. One that requires blog updates, news updates along with the ability to pull content that meet certain criteria to a page.

In the future I’ll be sure to give a better run down of technical details for Expression Engine and Wordpress. As you may notice this site is driven by Wordpress while my more recent clients that want a more complex site get Expression Engine.

• Sony – Sony the big blue chip name in consumer goods. selling ebooks and ebook reader.
• Amazon – Orginally dot com book store, now sells everything including ebooks and ebook reader
• Barnes & Nobles -Big brick and mortar book store. Also sells books online and just starting to sell ebooks, usable through their ebook program that runs on most devices and computers.

So what right? Think back a couple years, before iTunes was the defacto place to download music let alone movies. There were several companies each offering different types of DRM. Apple won that battle because they offfered the complete package. Easy to navigate and purchase from their store, which made syncing with their iPod even easier. Everyone else might have offered a more open store for people to use the MP3 player of their choice with the program to sync up of their choice. In this case the closed system works.

Fast forward to today, Amazon and Sony are both trying their own closed system. If you buy from Amazon it will only work with the kindle and likewise with Sony, and even Barnes & Nobles. They are offering the complete vertical package. Sony fails miserably compared to Amazon though. Although their store is decent there is nothing simple as buying directly from the ebook, or buying from the website and it automatically sending the book to your device. So far Amazon is winning. The real competition in my eyes is what is coming around the corner, Barnes and Nobles.

Barnes & Nobles doesn’t offer an ebook reader. What they do offer though is the ability to read the books on your computer (Mac or PC), Blackberry, iPhone or iPod Touch.  This is huge, they don’t have a ebook reader yet but they are allowing people to use what they already own as a reader. This ease of entry to market and the well established brand will make them a major influence. Amazon does offer an iPhone and iPod Touch app though, which is something. What they really need to do is open up to other platforms too, as @shiftB already said.

In the end though this will play out just like the MP3 battle. Everyone will choose their sides and hope that they last. I don’t think that any of there 3 will fall to the wayside, but I do think within a year there will be one major store. I’m placing my money on Amazon as shown by purchasing a Kindle for my wife and myself. The books I want to buy have been cheaper with them anyway.

Whats that you say? never heard of keyboard cat? go here to see an example of keyboard cat. Wasn’t that funny. Well, lets say you take keyboard cat, and combine it with Wolf Shirt, you get the greatest shirt ever. I will be purchasing this shirt and I suggest you buy one too. If thats not your style, then you can find many other awesome t-shirts from Threadless.com.

Released last night on the iTunes app store is the Kindle app for the iPhone. This software is free and allows you to read Amazon purchased books on your iPhone. The interesting part is that if you already have a Kindle, both original and new, it claims to sync with them and allow you to purchase from your phone. I decided to download this app and give it a try. I mean why not? Its free, I have a Kindle, I have an iPhone. If you don’t have a Kindle though it still might be worth checking out if you are interested in reading books on your iPhone. Its free, read my post and see what you think.When you first start the app, after downloading of course, you’ll be asked to register your phone. Its similar to how you register your Kindle to your amazon account. Very basic and very easy. Takes no time and immediately after registering my phone I was presented with a new screen

The Home screen is very plain and basic. It shows a list of books you have purchased and syncs the list, not the actual book. So far on my kindle I only have 3 books. I don’t like to buy too many only when I’m ready to read a new one. I have several in my queue though.

Going to the Archive  you’ll see the actaull books.  Tap on one and it will begin to download it to the iPhone. This is great, it means that I can pick which books to store on my phone, but it will still allow me to see all the available ones. Over 3G it didn’t take too long to download.

After downloading I opened it up, and to my surprise it opened to where I left off reading on my Kindle the night before. It really does sync everything. I can read it on my phone and when wake up my kindle it will be where I left off on my phone. I’m loving this.

Similar to the Kindle you can change font size, leave notes,  create bookmarks. Its nice to change the font size so that it can either fill the screen or make it easier to read.

Finally, you may have noticed on the “Home” screen there was a button to “Get Books” Well, this isn’t the best integration. It encourages you to visit amazon.com/kindlestore through your computers web browser. It is kind enough though to give a link that mobile safari can open just fine and browse for books. It would be nice to use the Amazon.com app or maybe a safari optimized page but this is still new so its ok. If there is anything else I come across I’ll be sure to update.

If the company was running Red Hat or another similar distrobution of linux they might be able to find a similar certification of training. The problem comes down to so many different distrobutions. Sure, they are similar, but each distro has little quirks that will vary with hardware and how the OS was built, was the kernel optimized. This means that to hire someone that could sufficently support the system would be expensive. Techies and nerds will argue, there is a large community of support online that could handle this. True, the problem is that its not cost effective for a business to spend all their time looking up answers online. If the person that had your custom built Debian server running leaves for whatever reason how easy would it be for someone else to come in? In a Microsoft enviroment it would be easier. Even in an interview I had recently the head of IT admitted that the company will probably just go with MS server 2008 for its active directory support. Not because its better but because its quicker and easier to get running.

Now I’m not a supporter of MS. far from it. I’m a realist. There so many flavors of Linux and other open source OSs that it makes it difficult for the common user to decide. Ubuntu is the closest Linux has had to having a standard. Linux will always be for people who like to tinker and check under the hood. It will always be for special applications, I just don’t see it being on grandmas desktop. It will find its way into tech savy and cheap businesses but I’m sorry to all my open source supporters, This will never be mainstream and calling all those that do attempt to go open source noobs is not the answer.

Adobe is not the only company that does this. They make claims that there is a need to keep prices high to offset piracy. I make the claim that a lower price would encourage people to just buy the software then pirate it. When napster came out I’ll admit to downloading lots of music. It was fairly quick at a blazing 56.6k bps modem, and it was very convenient. Now with iTunes and Amazon.com both offering DRM free songs I don’t feel like downloading it illegally. I know ways of doing it, but its convenient to me to just pay a buck for the song I want. If the song I want is not available I’m more likely to downloaded it though other means.

Recent stories have been published about the rapid growth of iPhone apps and their profitability. These apps are making money not just because of the ease to develop, but also the price. When an app is under $5 people are likely to buy and try. When there is a free demo, a la shareware, and a slightly high price point there still is lots of revenue to be made. The simple question is this. Is it better to sell 2 copies at $1000 each or 1000 copies at $5? Yes thats a hyperbole, but really its a case of supply and demand. There is a demand but placing a price out of the reach of many just leads to simple choices. Do you buy what you can not afford? (see economy for that problem) Do you try an alternative (ie competitor, such as GIMP for photoshop) or do you decide to maximize your revenue by setting a price accordingly? I know what I would do.

Fail Whale is no more, get your company on here

I’ll be writing a longer post about twitter specifically in the future. Every company that has a customer support department, and even those that don’t, need to be on a social network. Twitter allows people to rant and if you are wise tracking or searching for your company name you can find out who is complaining or needs help instantly. Using Twitter, facebook, or whatever your choice is, is a grass roots marketing and customer satisfaction. Comcast was one of the first to Twitter, and much props to Frank Eliasson for having the vision. I for one can speak praise of Comcast on Twitter.

One day my cable modem decided to drop out, was giving me lots of problems. I ranted on twitter about my problem, and sure enough I get a reply from @comcastcares asking if I’d like help. All through direct messages on Twitter I was able to schedule a service guy to come by and swap out modems. Wow that was easy.

Even other service or business should have a presence. Not only does this allow you to react and respond quickly but it allows you to have a greater influence on the early adopters. Early adopters of twitter and these other services are often the pioneers that later recommend and guide their family and friends in what technical things they should use or buy. If you get early adopters on your side then you will get those that listen to them on your side as well.

For those of you wanting to get ahold of a business I suggest visiting Social Brand index. They have a yellow pages of companies on Twitter and other social networks. This is an awesome way to get attention of a business and not have to deal with being on hold on the phone.

I like Fiber One Honey Cluster Cereal, eat it alot between my wife and I. At safeway this usually cost around $5 a box. Now from Amazon subscribe and saver service I can have them for about $3.75 a box. The catch is this, you have to order bulk, so its $22 for 6 boxes and I have to subscribe. The subscription means that I have to allow Amazon to automatically order them for me again in a period of time, for me its 4 months. So every 4 months I get another 6 boxes. They arrive free of charge and right on time.

The options of what tot order are somewhat limited and do vary but non perishable goods this becomes awesome. Some other things I subscribe to are brown rice, razors, hair supplies for my wife and I. Just figure out how long it last and order it from amazon. You save a couple bucks on the things you buy anyway and you save yourself room on your grocery list.

Save time, Save money, why not?

Twitterific Price:FREE Grade: C

Twitterific was originally an Adobe AIR app, and a pretty good one at that. Like its desktop brother it features an occasional ad for the free version or you can pay for an ad-free version.To me this would be an excellent client if you’ve never used any other client. The interface is clean and simple. Its very intuitive but lacks any real features. Sure, like the rest featured here they offer some type of updating location, using GPS coordinates, and placing pics in tweets. If you want a no frill just a simple clients and don’t mind dealing with an occasional ad being shown in your tweet stream then this is your clients.

Twitterific Twitter Stream

Twitterific New Post

Twinkle Price:FREE Grade: B

This was the second app I’ve tried and actually the app I’ve posted most of my tweets from according to tweetstats. Twinkle will be known to everyone that has a jailbroken phone. It was originally done by tapulous, same people that brought you the fun iPhone game “tap tap revolution”. My favorite feature about twinkle is its location tweets. It can find tweets nearby based on your own set preference of how far from your current location. What makes Twinkles nearby tweets work best is that they created their own “twitter” network so that it really is location tweets and not just what people place in their Twitter profile. I have found that when I have a question about local information, restaurants, traffics, etc I can turn to twinkle and post a message and sure enough will get a response.

The tweet stream reminds me of iChat’s bubbles and color codes replies. Twinkle does a fine job posting pics and uses an internal web browser so that you don’t have to close your client and open safari. Another nice feature is that Twinkle updates your location based off the GPS or cell towers and updates your profile in twitter of your location. This is great location/nearby twitter client. Its biggest weakness though is that its limited in other features as the next two apps will show. Its also a pain and sometimes confusing working with twitter and tapulous’s own network, even though they try and minimize any issues.

Twinkle New Post

Twinkle Tweet Stream

Twinkle Nearby/Local Tweets

Twitterlator Pro Price:$4.99 Grade:A-

My most recent purchase and probably one with the most potential and features. This app does it all. Its tweet stream is good, but I personally don’t like the buttons, its not too intuitive compared to the other apps. One great feature is that of posting a tweet. You have the option to post location and pics like the rest, but you also have built in Emoji icons. Pretty sweet. What I find to be even more awesome is that you can add people you follow into your tweet through an “@friends” button. If you’ve ever wanted to send a message to muliple people and not type out all their names you’ll love this.

More nice things is the ability to see nearby tweets, this only bases off your current location and the location people say they are in on their profile. Its not uncommon to see people talking about another state that show up in your local stream. It can also show you current trends that are going on, similar to those that show up on search.twitter.com. That may sound familiar to you all using tweetdeck, well so will the next feature. Groups, yes groups, just like tweetdeck. If you are following so many people that you can’t keep track you can create groups and only see the tweets from those in your group. I might have to look into this more in the future. Another nice feature is that the UI colors are customizable. I’m still playing with it so I’m not sure what other awesome features are available. I do know though that with so many options that the UI is somewhat broken. Its difficult coming from the other apps to this one and take advantage them all.

Twitterlator Tweet Steam

Twitterlator new Post

Tweetie Price:$2.99 Grade: A

I jumped on and bought this app one day after its was mentioned over and over on twitter. This is my everyday app, my favorite so far. Like Twitterlator, it has the same problem with local nearby tweets. What makes this my favorite is that its simple. The tweetstream is very simple and intuitive. It responds quickly and has a couple nice touchs. This also can show current trends on twitter but it also gives you the ability to search, and save searches. Following a certain topic? Search for it and save it. Now you can go and click on the saved search and see all the list of tweets from your search.

Its hard to put my finger on it. It has many of the same features as Twitterlator so I don’t want o repeat myself. It does lack the emoji icons and ability to add “@friends” in your twitter posting interface. It also lacks the cluttered interface. The simple interface is what draws me in. I can open this app and immediately see my tweet stream and can quickly post a tweet. Its quick and easy to reply. Maybe in the future I’ll switch over to Twitterlator but for now this is my favorite app, twitter client.

Tweetie new Post

Tweetie Tweet Stream

honorable mentions must go to Nambu, which is not a very good twitter client, but does allow access to friendfeed too which can be nice for when twitter goes down. Also to brightkite, which post to twitter but lacks the ability to view a tweet stream. It is the ultimate local social network though.

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