My iPhone fits snuggly in my back jeans pocket. My iPod fits perfectly in my track jacket pocket. But, what about my iPad? Where on earth should I store it while taking a nice stroll down the block to my favorite internet café? Oh, the dilemmas in life!

I could just get a cute new purse that holds the new sleek iPad, but how boring and passé! I know exactly what I’ll get – a dress that has a pocket in front perfect size for my iPad. If I don’t feel like getting all dolled up that day, I can get a plain white or black t-shirt with the same size pocket in front and pair it with my fav iPhone holding jeans.

Sounds crazy? Well an Australian based company, iClothing, has designed both a dress (an adorable dress at that) and T-shirts that have a custom fit pocket in the front for iPad owners. The pocket is securely stitched into place so that once the item is put inside, it’s as cozy and safe as a baby kangaroo in its mother’s pouch. The dress is currently sold out (boo!) but you can grab the T-shirts for $44.95!

I have a feeling that Steve Jobs will ask for a custom tailored black turtleneck iPad carrier shirt for the upcoming Apple conference. What do you think? Maybe it will be a trend for all attendees? Or, we’ll see it in a museum somewhere in 20 years. Either way, a pretty cool idea!

So, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I hope today’s sunshine is here to stay for the season. The back and forth rain showers have inspired me to do no more but keep my socks up high and my scarves tied tight. Tomorrow will be May 1^st. Doesn’t May mean summer, sunshine and sundresses? I sure hope so!

This happy Friday post is one that is wishing, hoping and praying for a May that will let me wear one of the hottest colors of the season – nude. I’ve always been a fan of nude fabrics and accessories, but this season, they’re pretty much a must!  There’s nothing like nude pumps, jeans and a nude tank to take a stroll in the sunshine, and I’m so ready to be there!

Wondering what’s around to add to your wardrobe? Here are a few ideas:

Shoes:

Steve Madden’s Caryssa

Aldo’s Tambe

Dresses:

American Apparel’s Terry Tube Dress

Lulu.com’s Shark Attack Dress

Accessories:

Givenchy Tinhan Old Pepe Hobo

Thomas Maier One Piece

Today, the Wall Street Journal has an article on coffee shops that are “pulling the plug” on laptop users. Apparently people (and they’re blaming it on the unemployed) are getting their cheap, refillable cup of coffee and then hanging out for hours, using the free wi-fi. In return, coffee shops are instituting “no laptop” rules for specific hours, such as between 11 am – 2 pm, or after 8 pm. They are also locking the outlets so that laptop users can’t charge up.

But in New York, the trend is accelerating among independents. At Cocoa Bar locations in Brooklyn and on the Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a five-month-old rule forbids laptops after 8 on Friday and Saturday nights. At Espresso 77 in Jackson Heights, Queens, owners covered three of five electric outlets six months ago after its loosely enforced laptop-use restrictions failed to encourage turnover. At two of three Café Grumpy locations — one in Brooklyn and the other in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood — laptops are never welcome.

Now, as a freelance writer, I work from home. That means I often get lonely, so about once a week, I head to the Bean Haus in nearby Covington. Covington is one of those urban, trendy areas that are fun anyway, and the Bean Haus is a funky, independently owned place that makes my chai from pressing real tea leaves.

I will hang out at the Bean Haus for up to 4 hours at a time. After that, I feel rather like I’m imposing, although they certainly don’t make me feel that way. In my four hours, I will drink at least three, if not four, $4.38 large skim chai lattes. Why? I sort of see it as paying for the free wi-fi. I would never just sit there and nurse one drink for more than an hour. This sort of rule, although personal, seems polite. I’m plugged into their outlet, using their table (usually a window seat), and taking advantage of their free wi-fi. Bean Haus is my office away from my home office. I even hold meetings there occasionally, as they have a wonderful (and free) conference room.

The sandwich/bakery/coffee chain Panera, locally, has always had the no laptops between 11 – 2 pm rule. It makes sense; they have a lunch crowd. I won’t often work at Panera though, because I don’t feel comfortable turning my back on my laptop for a few minutes to order a new latte. At Bean Haus, I am perfectly comfortable with that.

Part of me wishes the WSJ hadn’t published that article. I certainly don’t want to give any of the awesome coffee shops around here any ideas. So freelancers, unemployed, and other office-free folks, I beg you. Don’t abuse your free outlets and wi-fi at the local coffee shop. Give them your business, not just your body taking up a seat.

Image Credit: mangpages, via CC license

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Cheers!

Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

by Michelle Lentz

About a month ago, I posted that Twitter had officially added search and trends. Well, they’ve added them again, in that they’ve moved them. According to the Twitter blog,

A few weeks ago we started testing Twitter Search in the web interface for a subset of folks. We had the search box way up near the top of the page and the results on a separate page. It turns out that’s not the awesome way to do it. The best way to experience Twitter Search is when it’s a natural part of your normal Twitter experience.

I’d have to agree. Now, the Search box is in my right-hand column with Trends underneath. In this screen capture, I did a search on social media. Instead of going to a new page, my search now shows up right on my Twitter.com home page. Much more seamless than last month’s design, where I was taken to a new page of search results. Settings and Profile have both been moved back to the top of the screen, which is good.

Interestingly, you can also save the search. That’s a great feature, especially if you reference the same search repeatedly. (Maybe you’re tracking your brand.) However, once you save a search, I can’t figure out how to access it again. It’s supposed to be permanently in my sidebar, but that didn’t seem to stick. Ah, the joys of beta.

This newest redesign is in beta for a subset of users. Once Twitter gets some feedback, it may or may not roll it out to everyone.

Any thoughts on the newest changes?

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Michelle Lentz

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Twitter giving new search features to beta users. Well, the features are apparently out of beta, as Twitter is rolling out its latest user interface changes today. Refresh your Twitter.com page to see if they’ve arrived on your account yet.

At the top are two new menu options. Click Trends to see what’s trending right now on Twitter. Each of the trend keywords is a hyperlink to view the real-time discussion. As you can see,  #followfriday is currently the trending topic.

There’s also a new Search box. This is different from Find People, where you can search for friends. This Search box finally integrates search.twitter.com into the UI. Type in a topic and you can access the real-time conversation.

Have you been updated yet? What do you think of the changes?

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Brian Solis via PR 2.0

Source

HubSpot released the latest market data that reveals which tools and services people are flocking to when communicating on Twitter.

According to the research, most people interact on Twitter using Twitter.com from their browser of choice – almost half of all users in fact. Note to hubspot, would love to see that data broken out by browser.

Second, and it’s a distant second, people are interacting on Twitter using downloaded or web-based desktop apps, which provide additional functionality beyond the basic services provided on Twitter.com. Interestingly, mobile shows a strong placement in third, just behind desktop. As mobile applications on the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and Palm evolve, this number will continue to swell as they rival their desktop counterparts.

Twitter Interface Type – Percentage

Web – 48.1%
Desktop – 21.8%
Mobile – 17.9%
Aggregation / Automation – 11.7%
Pictures – 0.5%

HubSpot also reviewed the top applications in the Twitterverse. No surprise, the Web continues as the dominant source for Tweets, again representing almost half of all usage. What is surprising however, is the chasm of market share between the Web and the top Twitter apps. TwitterFeed and TweetDeck follow in a distant second and third place at 9.2% and 7.3% respectively. HubSpot found that a collective of over 600 apps combine for a total of 14.5%. I would love to see the list of those apps independt of this study.

Top Twitter Interfaces Percentage

Web – 46.5%
twitterfeed – 9.2%
TweetDeck – 7.3%
txt – 4.6%
twitterrific – 4.3%
twhirl – 4.0%
TwitterFox – 4.0%
Tween – 2.0%
TwitterBerry – 1.9%
TwitterFon – 1.8%
Over 600 Others – 14.5%

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by Michelle Lentz

Today Twitter announced (per the Twitter blog) that they are testing an improved search and trends feature. Twitter is rolling out access to a more integrated use of search from their Twitter page to selected users (beta testers, if you will).

Search.twitter.com has apparently been getting more and more popular (as I’m sure you knew, just as a user) in spite of its subdomain location. With the beta users, the Twitter Powers That Be hope to get a better sense of how people are using it. Once they get a better understanding, it’ll be all systems go for the rest of us. I say kudos to Twitter for taking this slow instead of jumping in headfirst.

The new trending function looks really nifty, with the ability to view a drop-down of the most popular topics on Twitter at any given moment in real time.

Adding both trends and easy access to search will make a huge difference for people using Twitter. With Search hidden, I bet a lot of casual users – and companies – are unaware of the power of brand and topic search in real time. It will soon be incredibly easy to follow what people are saying about your brand on Twitter, without ever leaving your Twitter page.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel, Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

Nominee for City Beat’s Best of the City: Vote for My Wine Education under Public Eye > Blog:
http://www.bestofcincinnati.com/

by Brian Solis

The Silicon Valley PRSA chapter hosted its annual Media Predicts event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Industry trendsetters, chroniclers and luminaries shared their predictions for trends, issues and technologies for 2009.

Media Predicts is literally a black tie affair that attracted PR professionals from every major agency and tech company in Silicon Valley.

Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey emceed the evening and Ann Windbladt of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners served as the moderator.

The panel consisted of tech media heavyweights:

Elise Ackerman, Technology Reporter, San Jose Mercury News
Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
John Markoff, Senior Writer, The New York Times
Mark Veverka, West Coast Editor & Columnist, Barron’s
Richard Waters, West Coast Editor, Financial Times

The discussion ranged from netbooks to Web 2.0 to Google and Facebook to Microsoft and Yahoo and everything in between. The witty banter seemed to lead us all over the place, but overall, it still fun and entertaining.

The panel invited us to gaze into their respective crystal balls for a moment, but for the most part, we dissected and analyzed the successes and epic failures of 2008.

Here are some of the highlights;

Some viewed the Obama campaign as the killer app of 2008, while others were ready to move beyond “Web 2.0.”

Michael Arrington, for example, scrubbed Web 2.0 from TechCrunch. When asked by Ann what his definition of Web 2.0 is, Arrington responded, “Web 2.0 was a renaissance from a nuclear winter – the last recession. We’re all about technology.”

Richard Waters defined Web 2.0 as ultra-low cost publishing with a bit of interactive tools.

Joh Markoff described it as open interfaces and open tools that plug services together in a Lego-like function.

The conversation promptly shifted from open to closed systems.

Arrington characterized a trend that closed could be the new open. He highlighted two successful companies that are based on closed systems, Apple and Facebook. In 2009, he’s looking forward to the competition between Android, iPhone and other smart phones.

Markoff countered, claiming that Apple is not closed. “If you count the lines of code in the Mac OS, 1/2 are open source,” he exclaimed.

Arrington pointed to Microsoft in its prime. “What if Microsoft approved all apps for the Windows OS before they were allowed to sell to the public,” he asked.

Richard Waters jumped in, “Apple is a closed system and closed platform,” he stated.

Ann introduced Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2009:

• Virtualization
• Cloud Computing
• Servers
• Web-Oriented Architectures
• Enterprise Mashups
• Specialized Systems
• Social Software and Social Networks
• Unified Communications
• Business Intelligence
• Green IT

In response to the list, Arrington revealed that he’s fascinated by the cloud computing efforts that are targeted at enterprise and consumers. However, he cautioned against the over enthusiasm of 2009 trends in the enterprise as it may well be the year of tremendous IT cuts in resources and budget.

Richard Waters refererred to Chris Anderson’s next book, “FREE.” In 2009, he believes that free is no longer going to be a good business model to support. “Cheap, on the otherhand is a great business model,” he believes.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Ann Winblad, John Markoff

Michael Arrington, TechCrunch

Mark Veverka, Barron’s

John Markoff

Elise Ackerman, San Jose Mercury News

Sam Whitmore

For more pictures from the Media Predicts 2009 event, please visit my album on flickr.

Special thanks to DNA13 for the invitation to join them at the event.

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