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So I wanted to test the video capture on the N95 by doing something important, so here it is. This was captured with medium quality and uploaded directly from the phone using my home wifi connection.

UPDATE: Nokia came through and I am now in possession of my trial N95 8GB! w00t!

Two days ago I got a welcome surprise in my inbox. Someone from Nokia had sent me an email via Flickr asking if I'd like to trial their flagship smartphone, the N95. Would I? I felt like I had just won the social media geek lottery! A friend of mine had actually been offered this same trial a few weeks back, so I knew this offer was for real. I e-mailed them back saying I would love to participate in the 3-week trial. About a day later I got a response saying great, please e-mail us at this address and we'll send you an agreement. It also cautioned that their time window was tight and since the team was about to depart the U.S. the next day, I needed to get the agreement back to them by next afternoon. No problemo, I responded right away with my e-mail and awaited a response.

The next day, I got up early and began earnestly checking my e-mail, awaiting the agreement. The morning hours ticked away, and I postponed planned errands just so I could be near a computer and fax. I even sent followup e-mails in case the previous one didn't make it. Nothing. Morning became afternoon and I eventually decided to leave the house, forwarding all my e-mails to my phone so that I could take action as soon as that e-mail arrived. Still nothing.

I'm so bummed because not only did it screw up my plans for today, but up until today I was the biggest Nokia fan. I've been saving and planning to purchase one of their phones, either the N95 or the N810 Internet tablet as the replacement for my trusty Sidekick. I'd seen many social media mavens like Scoble and Jeff Pulver use the N95 to do real-time video broadcasting from all sorts of neat places. I had been looking to test its built-in browser, GPS, and wi-fi capabilities. It seemed like the perfect multimedia phone. Until today.

I guess I wouldn't have minded so much if I had just gotten a simple e-mail saying something like sorry we ran out of time / we'll put you first on the list for the next time / yadda yadda. But getting no response is the worst response in my mind.

I'd be lying if I said I'd never consider buying another Nokia product ever again. But now I'm going to give their competitors an honest opportunity and maybe go with something less sexy, and definitely cheaper, because just this one time, a small slip like this may have created a small opening of doubt where before there would have been none.

I guess if I were an A-list blogger, this post might ruffle the right feathers and rectify things. But I'm not, so I'll just have to be satisfied with getting this off my chest.

I'm way behind in catching up on reviews of new and cool phone-based startups. Here's one that I'm playing around with. Snapvine and another competitor, SayNow, both allow you to publish a widget like the one below so that visitors to your website can call with any phone and leave you a message. That in itself isn't unique, but the ability to publish the voicemails back to the website via widget is neat. I'd post both widgets, but the SayNow widget isn't working as of now. With Snapvine, the visitor has to call out to a long distance number. SayNow actually calls the visitor back at their number, saving them the cost of a long distance call. Both companies are marketing to the MySpace crowd, as well as to bands and celebrities to keep in touch with their fans.

It's that time of year again where I find myself trying to clean out some unwanted books, CDs, and electronics, so naturally I turn to Amazon Marketplace and eBay for selling my stuff.

One issue that comes up when you do a lot of online selling is how to minimize your shipping costs. For books, CD, and other media, the cheapest way is to use USPS Media Mail postage rates. The trouble is, unless you're willing to stand in long, long, lines at the post office, you can't easily find a service that you can print online shipping labels with the correct media mail postage rates. Most of the commercial vendors like Stamps.com, Endicia, Pitney Bowes, etc. have services where you can print your own postage online or via PC desktop software, but all of them charge you a monthly fee for the privilege (plus the hassle of setting up the software and your account). Even dowdy old USPS only allows you to print Priority or Express Mail labels online through their website. (Note: USPS does offer a downloadable free software program called Shipping Assistant which I've used successfully in the past, but even that doesn't allow you to actually print the postage, only the label).

Doing an internet search, I came across a tip about an undocumented call you can make to your Paypal account which will do the trick. You do need a Paypal account which you can set up quickly. You can't access this link via the regular Paypal menus, so just type the following URL into your address bar after you login to Paypal:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ship-now

You will see a screen that asks you for all the info needed to print the USPS approved label. The postage will be automatically deducted from your Paypal account. This Ship Now feature is normally displayed after you receive funds in Paypal, but by using the above link, you can invoke this functionality anytime. Pretty neat!

So in case you're looking for something cheap to read, check out my Amazon storefront.

Addendum: I just read about a new shipping site called RedRoller.com that allows you to compare prices across different carriers and print labels right from their site. Worth checking out.

Once again the power of collaboration comes through. I'd been researching some hotels for my upcoming trip to Vancouver, and along the way, stumbled upon a local blogger who's part of the tech startup community there. I sent her a note asking for recco's, and lo and behold, they've got some suggestions. Not only was this a way to get inside info that you can't find using guidebooks, but also a way possibly to connect with some like-minded folks while I'm there.

In case you were wondering, why I'm going there, it's to present at a design competition for BIG games.

I've been quite absent from the blog lately, mostly because I've been tied up on some fantastic projects. Most recently working behind the scenes at the recent YearlyKos convention which rolled through Chicago. We did some cool text-to-screen stuff in conjunction with LocaModa out of Boston. At one point the Edwards campaign picked up on our efforts and asked their supporters to spam our onsite screen! It was truly inspirational seeing almost all the Democratic candidates up close and personal. The political blogger community is an energized, tech-forward bunch to say the least!

Lastly, the title of this post refers to one keynote session led by Andy Stern of SEIU. At the end of his talk, he pulled out a cellphone and asked people to text 35328 to answer a poll question. I knew text messaging had arrived when a union guy asks you to text. Obama and Edwards seem to have the most sophisticated web 2.0 operations right now. Both Edwards and Obama are on Twitter, and Obama even has his own custom shortcode. I'm looking forward to seeing what the campaigns roll out as the 2008 elections draw near.

Here is a small preview of something I hope to nurture into a larger scale project...