Petit Bourgeois

Today, a colleague made me aware that our company's Lotus Notes install now allows us to access email, calendars and contacts on our iPhones, natively, using an Exchange ActiveSync connection.

However, the iPhone only supports one such ActiveSync connection at a time. Basically, I can have a nice connection with my company data, or with my private data, but not both.

the connection with Notes is nothing short of what you'd expect. Nothing out of the ordinary, mail, calendar and contacts just work as the iPhone usually does, which is exceptional for Lotus Notes. And it's awesome, I've never felt so nicely in control of my Notes data (the Notes desktop client and the various webmails are notoriously clunky).

But I'd gotten used to having my iPhone contact and calendar data sync with Gmail seamlessly, and be comfortably and reliably available on the iPhone.

I still used IMAP for mail because of the lack of comfortable identity control, but even that was reasonably easy to set up, and seamless to use. It only came at the cost of push mail, which is more intense than I can deal with anyway.

But now, I've got to choose between mommy (private email on Gmail) and daddy (professional email on Notes), what a bummer!

I might switch my private email to Yahoo, which syncs separately from the ActiveSync account...

Poll by twiigs.com.

If you're located in the US, you can now read this blog on the Kindle, by subscribing here for $1.99 a month.

I don't know what my cut is, and with my posting frequency that's probably a bit expensive -- but it reinforces the cohesive content experience on the Kindle (which I raved about here, in case you missed it). And it puts a price tag on that experience, which I think is the right way to go. Is a change of medium necessary, and sufficient, to introduce payment for content?

I would have expected that an iPhone power adapter that has a USB plug as output would produce the same kind of current as another one with a USB plug, such as the Amazon Kindle adapter.

Not so, unfortunately. When I did, the battery icon on my Kindle started showing the "charge" lightning bolt, but I realized later it just kept on losing juice. Eventually it died and had trouble restarting, until I charged it with the right plug again.

It might be the difference in power (the iPhone adapter outputs 5V/1A, the Kindle 4.9V/.85A).

Kind of annoying for longer, computer-less trips (will have to bring 2 cables, and 2 adapters), although the Kindle's battery seems to last quite long, especially if you don't use the wireless.

A couple of weeks ago, I got myself a $260 Kindle from Amazon, after they'd announced its international availability.

I am very excited about this device and its associated services, but the price conditions outside of the US are not advantageous. Here are some observations after using the device a little bit -- and my take on the secret behind the success of the iTunes Music Store.

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On Sunday, I ran my first 42.195 km race ever, the ING New York City marathon, the 40th edition of the most iconic long-distance running event.

I would like to thank New York for the amazing atmosphere along the route, and around the event. The crowd gives support that I honestly did not believe in, before experiencing it for myself. (Note: my use of the term "amazing" is not, in this case, an American exaggeration, I really really mean it.)

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Oh yeah and thanks @holbuc and Per-Einar for launching Denmark, Norway, Sweden today (you might still see the old sites for a few hours if the DNS hasn't yet updated). Still a bit of QA to do, but I'm relieved it's finally done!

Also, @holbuc and the guys at The Plant fixed many problems on the Onitsuka Tiger site today. Did you check out the limited-edition 60 years anniversary book yet?

Bit nervous about flying tomorrow, should go to bed now!...

I've pretty much hated advertising for as long as I can remember but since I'm managing or helping manage ads for work, I figured I would try running some on my own site to gain some first-hand experience.

If you're reading this via the Feedburner-served RSS feed, you're supposed to see text ads under each post, and if you're on the site itself you should have a square box which may be text or banners in the right-hand column (it broke my search box, BTW, despite the fact that both are unmodified Javascript bits from Google).

My own browser is Firefox with the Adblock extension, so I don't see them myself... I fired up Chrome and IE to check them out, and boy, isn't it ugly and distracting?

Also, I'm pretty disappointed with the text matching. Seeing my company's ad served on my own private site is a mild irony in itself. They're probably served here because we're currently running a campaign in Holland, and I'm using the brand name several times in my posts. However, I do wonder why we're purchasing impressions for our most-popular search term and one for which we're the first organic result. Must have a chat with our media agency about this, I guess I'm missing a part of the picture.

Aside from the ASICS ads, I'm seeing really weird stuff (this is after the "TV's incredible" post):

In the RSS feed, under my review of the Bazaarvoice summit, an interesting surprise: an English ad inviting me to "Meet Local Gay Black Men Near You." It follows another English-language ad for a video chat app, a Dutch professional web event (that's quite relevant, actually) and something for Center Parks promotion vouchers, also in Dutch.

Might the ads deter you from coming back, or from reading my feed? Not that I necessarily have that much traffic in the first place, but I wonder if they might drive people away from the site. Hit the comments!

Two months ago, I had never heard of the brilliant British TV series Yes Minister. First aired on the BBC in 1980, it portrays an incompetent minister in a UK Cabinet newly elected on a reform ticket, battling his top civil servant who will do anything to avoid implementing any changes.

The third episode aired on 17 March 1980. It pitches the minister against his department in a battle to establish (or not) safeguards preventing unauthorized access by officials to a Government database of private information about her majesty's subjects. I was appalled to find it echo my exchange with bv about the staggering public lies on "security" databases: it's not even a modern issue. (More on this at Privacy International.)

Second coincidence: yesterday, I downloaded the iPhone application Uitzending Gemist, which allows you to watch the past 8 days of Dutch public TV. I don't have TV and don't miss it, but I thought I'd check it out.

The first show I see on the screen when testing it an hour ago? Sorry Minister, a local, contemporary remake.

Oh yes--and the app is awesome, by the way!

A visitor named Kevin dropped me a note asking for more details on site dimensions (or here about Stèles). His email address unfortunately bounces, so I can't reply to him directly, but here's what I wanted to say:

My point about "dimensions" is that they're specific to each body of information.

For me, in a collection of elements, a dimension is a characteristic of the elements that helps the user navigate the collection. For example, in a magazine (a collection of articles), the article's author is a dimension (I can navigate through all articles by a certain author) but the title isn't ("all articles with title X" makes no navigational sense).

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Bazaarvoice is an American company providing the infrastructure and operational support for online "customer voice" services to brands and retailers, typically in the form of systems to facilitate consumer reviews of products offered on e-commerce sites. They brought together their own product and marketing staff, representatives from key clients, key service partners, external experts and visionaries, and prospective customers such as ASICS, to a day-long look at the social aspects of online commerce.

Forgive the text-heavy post, but I think the content is worth it, so please bear with me while I tell you about Ze Frank and Ian Jindal.

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