Jim Carlson dot Net

According to an article I read this morning on the New Your Times, shopping online using cell phones or tablet computers (iPads, iPods) accounted for 5% of online sales in November 2010. Last year, the sales were, “too insignificant to measure”.

Readers of Jim Carlson dot Net may recall that I’ve been experimenting with the mobile blog publishing, photo editing and printing and currently am trying to decide if I can survive with a ‘dumb phone’ and an iPod Touch.

Mobile phones and tablets are changing the way we live and work. Although ‘smart phones’ continue to evolve (my articles were based on the painfully out of date Moto Q9C), I’m seeing more and more people using the iPod Touch as an inexpensive way to get the benefits of a ‘smart phone’ with out the added price of the ‘smart phone’ service.

The interesting thing about this evolution of internet shopping is that many users, my self included, don’t think twice when making a purchase using these devices. I’ve purchased items from a variety of stores, won Ebay auctions, made payments with PayPal, purchased movie tickets while in line at the theater and transfered balances using mobile banking.

One more note on the use of these devices. Like many people I talk to, I have used my smart phone or my iPod to make purchases even when I am in the vicinity of my home computer.  I am spending more face time on the handheld devices than their cousins (laptops and…dare I say it….desktops).

The use of mobile is also changing retail. It is not uncommon to see people checking for better deals on their mobile while shopping in-store. Ironically, in the footer of the NYT article that inspired this post was a link to an article on how Best Buy Feels the Pressure of Rivals on the Web.

Mobile devices continue evolve. Best Buy is running commercials describing the latest smart phones as ‘laptops in your hand’.  Not a bad description, unfortunately, this same company is dealing with people surfing for better deals on the very devices they sell.

Like many cell phone users, I’m faced with a decision every night before going to sleep: Do I turn my phone off, set my ringer to silent (or vibrate), or leave the phone on?

Turning the phone off certainly helps one get an uninterrupted nights sleep…until you miss an essential call: a family emergency, some one in need of a friend, etc.

What I’d like to see is an app or a ring tone that allows certain numbers to ring through, while all others are rendered silent. Before bed, I’d simply turn my ringer to the ‘night’ setting.

For example, I could ‘allow’ calls from family, while ignoring customer calls from Australia, friends looking for me to grab my guitar @ 12:30 am and jam, etc…

Does anyone know of such an app? Anyone else see the value of such an app?

One of the interesting developments with mobile web browsing is the increasing number of iPod Touches I’ve seen in my travels.

For the unaware, the iPod Touch does just about everything the iPhone does….except offer cell service. As long as there’s WI-FI, a user can browse the internet, download apps and songs and check in on FourSquare or Facebook Places. Since WI-FI is available in many businesses (McDonalds, StarBucks, etc), coverage is widely available.

Since the latest version has a mic and two cameras, now you can now snap and upload photos, record video and communicate via FaceTime, Skype or similar VOIP service.

I know of at least three people who have ditched their smart phone for a ‘basic cell’ and use the iPod for their mobile web needs.

Right now, my smartphone contract is up, and I’m experimenting with my Touch. To be fair, the Touch delivers a far better internet experience than my Windows Mobile phone.

Can I survive with a Touch and a ‘dumb-phone’? The jury is out. Let me know if you’ve made the leap or why you wouldn’t even think of it.

In my post Cell Phone Photo Processing, I demonstrated how I used a micro SD card [with an SD converter] in my Canon SD1000 camera, took high quality images and processed them by placing the same micro SD card [with a mini converter] in my Moto Q. I was able to rotate, color correct and crop the images and e-mail them to any source (friends, blogs, photo processing centers….) from my phone.

Today, Wired online reviewed the Polaroid PoGo Printer, which allows photo printing via Bluetooth or USB connections from camera phones and cameras with Pict-Bridge technology (a great deal of cameras, including my SD1000 have this technology).

Although the printer is far from perfect, this technology is not only fun, but another indicator of the future of mobile photo processing and photo sharing.

With few exceptions, cell phone cameras produce relatively poor images. As I was preparing for my mobile blog experiment, it hit me: My Moto Q should be able to read images taken with my Canon SD1000.

The solution was starkly simple. The Moto uses a mini SD card, the Canon uses an SD card. By using the adapter that came with my micro SD card, I could use the same memory card in both my Q and my Canon.

What You Need

1. A cellphone with internet/e-mail access that can read a mini, micro or full sized SD card.
2. A camera that uses a mini, micro or full sized SD card.
3. Adaptable media. I used a micro SD card with both mini and full size adapters.

Taking Pictures

By using the micro SD card in the SD adapter, I simply placed the card in my camera. Since I would be editing and sending the images from my phone, I set the camera to the 1.9 mega pixel mode [1600 x 1200] rather than 7.1 mega pixel mode [3072 x 2304].

I did test editing and sending 7.1 mega pixel images on my Moto, however, the processing and upload times are considerably longer than the lower resolution images.

Editing / Sending Images

Once I shot the images on my Canon, I simply took the micro SD card out of the full size adapter, placed it in the mini adapter and put it in my Moto.

The Moto is a Windows Media 6 based phone which has basic photo editing tools that allow you to rotate, crop and auto correct images. Once the images are corrected, you can choose to save over the original or ‘save as’ to preserve the original.

To send the images, compose an e-mail, attach the image(s) and hit send.

Conclusion

For bloggers and photographers who want to edit and send high quality images from their phone, adaptable media makes the process incredibly easy. Beyond blogging, sending images via e-mail allows for instant sharing (with friends/family/colleagues), seamless uploads to Flickr and delivery to photo printing services (to get prints in about an hour).

In a very short amount of time we have gone from waiting for film to develop, to downloading images from our digital cameras to our computers. We’ve tolerated sharing grainy, poor quality cell phone images. Now with mobile technology, high quality images can be taken with a digital camera and processed and shared using a cell phone.