web2.0

CNN Re-Born

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cnn relaunch
Yes, the day is finally here.

After over 18 months of work amounting to literally thousands of staff hours, the CNN.com site has been reborn in full embracement of modern web content and technology approaches. After an extensive beta, the site has now replaced the prior version of CNN.com which had essentially never had this extensive and end-to-end redesign in it’s nearly 12-year-long history.

And yes, the site looks lovely on the iPhone too.

And here’s what the blogosphere has to say about it…

A slideshow of these images can be found here, or click on a thumbnail below.
troy, greg, heather...dermot, lori, karen, alaymitch & susan conferkurt, mark and simitmitch, susan & ramonicamanagementdueling laptopsteamgroup shotsandy and troydavid & heathersam and troygreg & iphonecnn relaunch on iphonewhewsimitthe moment of truthcnn relaunch on iphone

Gadgets, technology

activesync coming to the iphone?

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So much for the lines. A buddy of mine just called, saying he waltzed into the Lenox Square Apple Store at 8pm EDT and simply asked for and was handed his iPhone. No camping required, which is a good thing, because his wife threatened legal action if any urban camping was involved in his quest for this gadget

Well, I may have to eat my words. First, ZDnet blogger Mary Jo Foley who covers Microsoft reports rumors of ActiveSync licensing to be announced at any time for the iPhone. That means, for those companies who enable this feature on their Exchange servers, OTA sync would be possible for email and calendars on the iPhone – glory be, hallelulia! I want to see Apple confirm this, but this basically blows away the issues around corporate integration. Second, uber-tech writer from the WSJ Walt Mossberg makes an offhand comment in his video review of the device that Exchange integration is possible “if your IT department cooperates by enabling a setting on the server.” Now he didn’t specifically talk about ActiveSync, and may have simply been referring to the capability of Exchange servers to support outside-the-firewall IMAP, but I am keeping my fingers crossed on iPhone & ActiveSync. Mary Jo reports confirmation in both the Times and WSJ on the issue of Exchange IMAP support, but still stands by her report that Microsoft is licensing ActiveSync for the device. And there is an outside chance the gadget fairy may bless me with one of these for testing. Now I’m interested again.

Food

toss the booty

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Wanted to pass along this nation-wide recall of what I know is the fave snack of a lot of the toddlers (and their parents) – Veggie Booty, produced by Robert’s American Gourmet. In a note from Robert (PDF, Adobe Acrobat required) says that they have decided to temporarily stop all manufacture and sale of the Veggie Booty product. They have more detail on this page as well. Per this story in the LA Times today,

Robert’s American Gourmet Food Inc. recalled all its Veggie Booty snacks across the U.S. and Canada because the mix might be contaminated with salmonella, regulators said Thursday.

Veggie Booty, which include both kale and spinach, seem like a sneaky way to make sure the little ones are getting vegetables when they snack, has been the subject of controversy in the past. Back in 2002, a Good Housekeeping staffer exposed their labeling as being inaccurate, reporting only a third of the actual fat content of the treats. They have also run afoul of other labeling around their Fruity Booty being ‘mostly’ fruit. Turned out that wasn’t entirely accurate either. Anyway, our just-opened bag of Pirate Booty (in the cheese flavor), another of their products, is going into the trash now, until we hear more.

Gadgets

what iPhone?

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iphone_curve_vx6700
Bah, humbug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you’ve heard it all before. I’m sure you were expecting to hear that I’m skipping work, camping out at Lenox Mall to get a shiny new iPhone Friday afternoon. Well, for many reasons, I decided weeks ago that without the integration with with my company’s Microsoft Exchange systems for over-the-air calendar features and push email, the first generation iPhone was not going to be on my shopping list, at least for now. I’ll wait for the bugs to get ironed out, true 3G network support, and better corporate support. I’m now (as of a couple of weeks ago) the proud new owner of Research in Motion’s latest offering, the spiffy new Blackberry Curve/8300 (middle, above).

And let me tell you, I feel like I’ve entered the 21st century when comparing this smartphone with the horrendous Verizon/HTC VX6700 Windows Mobile (far right, above) device I’ve been using for over a year now. Lack of usability doesn’t even begin to describe the issues with the Vx6700. Resets required two and three times a day, calls going directly to voice mail, horrible battery life, and the form factor of a brick. I had such high hopes for Windows Mobile as a breath of fresh air over what I’d been using before – the third in a series of Palm Treos I’d been using since 2002 or so. Before that, I’d lived with a series of the very early and sometimes somwhat crude Blackberry devices for several years. I may be a power user, with thousands of emails in my inbox etc., but no commercially available device should perform as poorly as that VX6700.

What do I want in a smartphone? I’ve already said it’s an absolute must to have the OTA calendaring and overall Exchange integration. The iPhone is admittedly an amazing device, but without a hack to provide these features, I remain tethered to a laptop or desktop somewhere to keep my crazy calendar in check, and that’s what having one of these phones is all about. The new Curve is very satisfying. It’s got a great screen that adapts surprisingly well to changes in ambient light, the camera is great to have and offers decent quality for a phone, and the web browsing experience is actually quite good. Perceptually, web browsing on this device seems faster than the sluggish overhead from Windows Mobile on the VX6700, particularly on mobile-optimized sites.

Like the iPhone, the ‘full-web’ experience on the Curve is pathetic – using AT&T/Cingular’s pokey ‘Edge’ network for fully broadband-optimized web sites. But I find this all a small price to pay for the convenience, reliability, and generally instantly-responsive behavior of the Blackberry Curve – not to mention corporate tech support at the office being behind it 100%.

Photos, musings and miscellany – New and Improved!