“Automattic, the company behind the WordPress blogging platform have dramatically increased the online file storage capacity for free WordPress.com blogs. How dramatically? Well bloggers used to get 50MB of space for images and documents. Now they can upload up to 3GB. For free.“

“Not only do the editors here at Lifehacker feed your head with a feast of posts every day, every once in awhile we put our programming chops to good use and build custom software for our readers. If you’ve missed any of the Lifehacker Code line of applications, scripts, and plug-ins, here’s your chance to get caught up.“

AT&T is now offering a variety of data service plans for customers who are using Apple’s iPhone. These cost less than the plans for consumers, at least until the end of this year.

“Recently Stephen King, one of the best known American writers, wrote a very good article about his recently bought Kindle.

Will Kindles replace books? No. And not just because books furnish a room, either. There’s a permanence to books that underlines the importance of the ideas and the stories we find inside them; books solidify an otherwise fragile medium.

But can a Kindle enrich any reader’s life? My own experience — so far limited to 1.5 books, I’ll admit — suggests that it can. For a while I was very aware that I was looking at a screen and bopping a button instead of turning pages. Then the story simply swallowed me, as the good ones always do. I wasn’t thinking about my Kindle anymore; I was rooting for someone to stop the evil Lady Powerstock. It became about the message instead of the medium, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

And did I mention that you can also look up definitions of words that puzzle you as you read? My definition of Kindle: a gadget with stories hiding inside it. What’s wrong with that? “

Stephen King test-drives the Kindle

“If you’re looking to gain respect for your gear as a serious business-class tool, there’s no better way than to infiltrate those Big Four accounting firms still using Lotus Notes. According to a piece carried by the Associated Press, Lotus Notes eMail is coming to Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. We kid you not. The announcement is expected as early as Sunday the 20th, the day IBM’s annual Lotusphere conference kicks off in Orlando. The software is free for those with existing licenses which means IT is going to have a hell of a time keeping it out of users’ hands. If true, the application would presumably be the first official, third-party application developed with Apple’s new iPhone SDK. IBM is also expected to announce their free Lotus Symphony flavor of OpenOffice for the Mac at the same time. An IBM spokesman seemingly confirmed the announcements by saying that Apple and IBM have, "a lot in common. We’re going to cross-pollinate." Let’s just hope they manage to untangle that jumbled Notes UI for finger-friendly navigation during the mating ritual, eh?“
[Via MacRumors]

“Forrester Research offers these 10 reasons why the Apple iPhone isn’t ready for enterprise IT support, and therefore use by your company:

1. Doesn’t natively support push business email or over-the-air calendar sync. . The iPhone can sync with Microsoft’s Exchange and IBM’s Lotus Notes over IMAP and SMTP ports, but your server and security admins have to configure their infrastructure to do so or purchase a mobile gateway from Synchronica or Azaleos..
2. Doesn’t accommodate third-party applications, including those internally developed. . This is a showstopper for companies with enterprise mobility initiatives that require line-of-business applications like mobile sales force automation or an industry-specific application like mobile claims.
3. Doesn’t support securing data on the device through encryption. There is no way for a company to natively secure the data on an iPhone with file or disk encryption.
4. Can’t be remotely locked or wiped in the event of a lost or stolen device. .there is no way for IT to lock a device if – scratch that, when – users call the help desk and explain that they left their non-password-protected iPhone behind in a taxi.
5. Lacks a hard keypad that provides feedback, which isn’t ideal for rapid and accurate input. . Many respected journalists have come to the conclusion that ultimately the keyboard “is a nonissue,”
   but only after five days of use. In speaking with enterprise-class mobile device users on a daily basis, the vast majority have found that they need some form of tactile feedback from their QWERTY or numeric keyboards. .
6. Has limited service provider support and its carrier lock-in inhibits flexibility. .To date, Apple has officially announced four exclusive carriers for France (Orange), Germany (T- Mobile), the UK (O2), and the United States (AT&T). Outside of these countries, the iPhone isn’t available yet.
7. Comes with a premium price tag. .Sourcing analysts rely on corporatewide discounts when they place a bulk order with their carrier, but AT&T will not sell the iPhone to business accounts – only consumers. Because the iPhone is purchased directly by the user, there’s no taking advantage of the discount. Moreover, IT is stuck in an endless loop of reactively supporting the device, which limits the ability to provide best-in-class service..
8. Is only the first generation. .even Apple enthusiasts admit that there are some weaknesses they’d like to see fixed in future generations, like making it easier to activate the device, improving the battery life and sound quality, and, most importantly, allowing it to connect to higher-speed networks (3G) .
9. Lacks a removable battery, so when the battery kicks it, so does the device. . Apple does not sell replacement batteries for the iPhone. So when the battery dies, so does worker productivity..
10. Lacks case studies of firms that have deployed it enterprisewide. . There is one known large enterprise that supports iPhones companywide, and it is Apple itself. Beyond that, we haven’t heard of many enterprises that have embraced the iPhone as a corporate device. And, as tough as it is to admit, the most trusted advisors to IT operations professionals aren’t industry analysts, journalists, or even the vendors themselves; it’s your peers.

UPDATE on No. 1: AppleInsider reports today on a new company job listing at Apple for “a motivated, highly-technical Exchange test/sync engineer” to join a team focused on “testing Exchange and Outlook functionality with Apple’s innovative new phone.” The full listing is available here.

Source: CNN Money/Fortune“

“Very troubling, yet interesting to say the least- it seems the world of Gaming Journalism just got a bit more controversial. Rumors were a buzz yesterday regarding GameSpot’s senior editor Jeff Gerstmann’s position at the site.

After a lot of detective work, and some insider sources, the rumors are now confirmed, Mr. Gertsmann has been fired from the CNET owned company. Why you ask? Apparently due to a low review score on Eidos’s Kane & Lynch action title. Jeff reviewed the game and issued it a paltry score of 6.0- too low, it seems, for Eidos ( or whoever issued the final straw).“ (more…)

SplashData announced today the launch of SplashID 4.0 password manager for Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices. The new version, released in July for Palm/Treo devices, offers a host of new features that enhance security, convenience and connectivity.

Whether the sensitive information you carry around with you on your mobile device is for business or personal use, all of us need to take the steps necessary to keep that data from falling in the hands of the wrong people.
As with prior versions of SplashID, version 4.0 includes two software applications that work together — one application for a user’s handheld and companion software for a desktop computer. Both the mobile application and the Windows desktop software have been updated in SplashID 4.
Key new features of SplashID 4′s handheld software include:

• Active URL links, giving them the ability to simply tap the URL field to launch the web browser and immediately access a website.
• Four additional data fields for filling in information, bringing the total number of fields in each SplashID record to ten, plus a Notes field.
• Enhanced Password Generator, automatically generating robust passwords that fit specific criteria and rating the strength and security of selected passwords.
• The ability to email records, with SplashID automatically exporting a secure vID file and attaching it to an email message that can be sent to colleagues.

SplashID 4′s Windows desktop companion software has also been completely revamped with updates including:

• Web Auto-Fill, simplifying data entry of user names and passwords in SplashID by using a web browser to go directly to a site and retrieving the username and password to auto-fill in the record.
• Panel View and Tree View, two ways to view all records or categories or types of records
• Database Sync, enabling advanced users to select multiple databases to synchronize with on the desktop and easily share data with other users, even across a network.
• Auto Search, retrieving records simply by the user entering a few letters in the Find box to instantly display results in the results view.

SplashID 4 for Palm OS, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry is available at http://www.splashdata.com for $29.95. Current SplashID users can upgrade for $9.95. SplashID may also be purchased in a bundle as part of the SplashWallet Suite, which includes SplashID, SplashMoney, SplashPhoto and SplashShopper for $59.95. A free 30-day trial version is also available for download.
Source: Kevin Doel {Thanks Kevin}