Diego Giol Internet and many other things

Even though that the product was announced last week, it was not available for download until today. After a few days waiting for it, I installed the beta version of this very good application on my Nokia E70, luckily everything went as expected.

I can see Nokia’s value proposition here. Not only you can use a compatible GPS coupled with the phone but you can also download the maps through your computer into your mobile. If you don’t have a flat data connection plan, like many users in the UK, you would have to pay up to £ 5 per Mb transferred from/to the mobile phone. Even if it is not ideal, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to put all the maps that you use in your mobile, at least until data rates are more reasonable.

Related links:

• www.smart2go.com

Many people have business ideas but probably only a few go further than “having the idea”.

I just found an article on The Guardian Unlimited with seven “Golden rules of entrepreneurship” by the frech entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur. I found them quite simple but yet useful for potential entrepreneurs:

• You wait for the idea of your life. I know so many people who, before starting a business, wait for the idea that will revolutionise the world. They never do it. We all have business ideas and the difference between an entrepreneur and a “normal” person is that the entrepreneurs execute it.
• You do not look for the empty space surrounding you. Opportunities are everywhere. Did you ever think “this service can be really improved”, or “this product is really bad”? This is empty space and an opportunity to create a business. Of course, it is even better if you find not just an improvement to a product or a service but a real innovation that addresses a clearly identified need.
• You do not share your idea with anybody. So, you’ve got your simple idea? Probably not. Every time I created companies, I had about five different ideas. Most people protect their business ideas as if they were protecting the most valuable thing they have. I do exactly the opposite, as sharing your ideas can help you better define and test them. Many people will criticise them and enrich them. If everyone tells you the plan is stupid, then what they say may well be true!
• You give up on your idea because someone has already done it. Look at low-cost airlines. Ten years ago, who would have thought that out-of-the-box airlines would appear and take the market share that Ryanair, easyJet or Virgin have? Just measure how innovative you can be, how much faster than your competitors can you go and how much better your product can be.
• You do not execute your idea. Your idea is worth nothing if you do not execute it immediately, faster and better than competition. You should be more scared by not executing fast enough than having the idea right. This is just because from the idea in your mind to the company you will have created, and from the very first products and services you deliver to the mature ones, your idea will have changed tens of times with the feedback you got from your clients.
• You listen to people who tell you that you will fail. Congratulations. You have finally chosen an opportunity and started gathering a team to make it happen. Even though the team is only you, this is just awesome, as you have started doing it rather than thinking about it. Now you will find tens of people, some of them you consider friends, who tell you that you will fail for hundreds of different reasons. Do not listen to them. Listen to your clients, and be obsessed by quality. Your friends just envy you.

Related links

• Mind your Own business - Guardian Unlimited
• Loïc Le Meur’s blog

Many times we have heard things like “who would you take with you to a desert island?” or “what five objects would you take with you to a desert island?” Well, I asked my self the same old question but rephrased for the XXI century: “what five web sites would I like to have access to from a desert island?”

I know, what kind of person asks himself this kind of questions? Let’s just say that it is an excuse for me to list some of my favorite sites.

Anyways, here is my list:

1. Skype: If I am going to be alone in the middle of nowhere, then I will want to talk with my friends and family! And may be I can convince them that they should come and rescue me… Now talking seriously, this is an excellent software and it has very good sound quality. I have audio and video conferences almost every day with friends and relatives in Europe, USA, South America and Australia. I use it even more than my fixed phone!
2. Netvibes.com: This French site is the start page on my browser. It took me a while to understand how it works but now I just love it. I access nearly everything from it. These are some of the sites I access from it: my favorite newspapers, my Gmail e-mails, my favorite blogs, my own blogs, my favorite pictures, bookmarks, a calendar, my favorite podcasts and video feeds. How is this possible? It pulls the info from all those sites into a single page. It is excellent.
3. Google.com: Simply the best and easiest search engine out there.
4. Wordpress.org: This is the software I use for blogging. It is for free and very good. It would help me to write my experiences in the island.
5. And the last one is… Gmail.com: I have to admit that I had an account for more than a year and I never used it. But in the last months they added (or I discovered, I am not sure which one was first) some features that I found very useful: possibility to send e-mails from different addresses but using the same account, I can add the news or info I want to see when I get in, plus old features like over 2 Gb of space and I can read my emails with Outlook.

May be you find them useful as well…

Many of you might be users of one or more sites with the service of the moment: video sharing.

The problem that we face is that we might want to keep some of these videos on our computers or to put them on DVDs or CDs.

I discovered KeepVid.com, a web-site that allows you to download your favorite videos.

• KeepVid.com

Enjoy it!

If you are still using software-based rss readers but you would want to read all your favorite feeds on-line so you can access them at anytime and from anywhere, then you might find this article very useful:

• The state of online feed readers

I particularly liked the PC-Magazine-like chart that compares different features of 9 on-line aggregators.

A must read if you like the blogging world.