This independence Day Weekend I decided to post something that will make you think. It’s a small video of a collection of interesting facts. I have posted various versions of this video in the past but this seems to be the newest version so far.

I’m also considering my own independence from the corporate world and all this new technology is pushing me towards that goal. Hence, one day I hope to have my own independence day.

Have you updated your iPhone OS today?

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• Why Apple doesn’t want Flash on iOS (technovia.co.uk)
• iOS4 Releases Tomorrow, Get Ready Tonight [IOS4] (gizmodo.com)
• Evernote for Apple iOS4 is here (evernote.com)

My latest video and my Youtube debut if you’re curious. I purposely did the video in HD 720p. This is the format the new iPhone will be able to shoot in. An 8GB card will get you about 6 minutes of HD video. Yes, the files are large when dealing with HD. A 32GB iPhone will hold about 24 minutes of HD video and that doesn’t include your music files. So if your thinking of doing that upgrade to the iPhone 4 and do a lot of video shooting you might want to opt for the 64GB option.

As for my latest video… It’s filmed on the Long Beach Boardwalk, Long Island, which also happens to be one big wireless hotspot. Go early and avoid the crowds.

Related articles

• Wi-Fi: It Just Keeps Going and Growing (gigaom.com)
• Welcome iPhone 4, a small overview (theworldison.blogspot.com)
• Google Adds Tethering And WiFi Hotspot To Next Android Update (GOOG, AAPL) (businessinsider.com)

Latest DailyBooth Pic

Ok, here’s a little roundup of my week from Monday thru today with Sunday being a supposed day of rest.

Monday – WWDC Keynote Day. I followed the WWDC live and learned about the new iPhone 4. Unfortunately I won’t be able to upgrade for a full year but I may do a purchase anyway. I usually stay a generation behind to save money so by the time the iPhone 5 comes out I could very well just purchase a clearanced iPhone 4.

If anything I can take advantage of the new iPhone OS coming out. As always this update is free. I won’t be able to run multiple apps since my old iPhone doesn’t have enough processing power to do that but I will be able to organize my apps into folders on the home screen and that would really help.

Tuesday – One of my blog postings to MetsReport.com was highlighted by Matthew Cerrone on MetsBlog. You can find the original article here… The NY Mets look like a playoff contending team and this will be an interesting summer to write about them. You can see more at my author page.

Friday – I left my iPhone home again and I didn’t feel like blogging about it. I’ve done that once already. This time is was no big deal. This is the 2nd time I’ve run out of the house without it in the last year. I can go 8 hours without it. A whole day? …not sure.

Saturday – finished up a few loose ends with the current volunteer project and starting up a great new volunteer project with the same department. I would love to blog about it if I can get permission.

Throughout the Week – I’ve also added a DailyBooth share button to the site. What’s DailyBooth? It’s a social media site where mac users post a daily picture of themselves through Apple’s PhotoBooth. Of course anyone with a webcam can use it but it does feel like a mac themed site.

I also did a little update on the Long Island WiFi spreadsheet. Cleaned it up a little and added a few spots. I would love to have more spots added but I do still have to work full time, volunteer, blog and make attempts at keeping a normal social life. It’s all pretty demanding.

Updated Apple’s Safari browser from 4 to 5 on my Mac and HP Vista. It’s still not my browser of choice but the upgrade did make a noticeable improvement in speed and security. Check your computer and make sure it is updated because Apple and Microsoft have issued a lot of updates in the last few weeks.

I have a couple of small projects lined up so stay tuned as a Long Island summer kicks into gear.

Related articles

• iPhone 4: As Far As The iPhone Can Go? (geardiary.com)
• Watch WWDC Steve Jobs Keynote Video (crenk.com)
• Ars at WWDC 2010: hands on, pics of the new iPhone 4 (arstechnica.com)
• What really happened with Wi-Fi on the iPhone 4 (tuaw.com)
• Week in Apple: WWDC 2010, iPhone 4, Safari 5, oh my! (arstechnica.com)

There it is. The iPhone 4, with the capability to make movies in HD, is the best phone that will ever be available for at least the next 5 years. This phone can basically do everything a MacBook Pro can do. I love it already but I won’t be able to get my hands on one for at least another year. Gotta love contracts…

Microsoft and Google do not, and may never have anything near what Apple can offer. For those of us who blog and vlog, this is a must have piece of technology.

The only obvious issue I have is, now that the iPhone will be able to make HD video, with AT&T eliminating unlimited data plans, how do you take full advantage of this phone? The dataplus plan at 200mb a month will be useless and the datapro plan at 2gb a month is just enough data to allow you to upload one 2-3min HD video before your monthly allotment of data is used up.

You can shoot, edit and create an HD movie all on the phone but you’ll need a wifi connection to get that movie onto the internet. I imagine that everyone who upgrades to this phone will keep their unlimited data plans that were grandfathered in.

Would you buy this phone knowing that the new data plans are useless on this phone?

Related articles

• Analysts pleased by Apple’s decisions (news.cnet.com)
• AT&T Dropping Unlimited Wireless Plans, Announces Tethering [News] (lifehacker.com)
• 10 Apple iPhone 4 Game Changers (centernetworks.com)
• Wait, Bing is DEFAULT search on iPhone 4? (thenextweb.com)
• Apple Unveils New IPhone to Dial Back Android Rivalry (businessweek.com)
• Should I Buy an iPhone 4? [Iphone 4] (gizmodo.com)

And I’m hoping ATT offers a really discounted upgrade since I am still on the original 3G iPhone. :)

I love this kind of geeky stuff where you try to figure out where the tech world is going. This Ted Talk examines just that topic. This talk states that much of what is being developed today will be available 5 years from now. I have a feeling, in about 20 years or so, the feel of a keyboard will be nostalgic much like a rotary phone. (What’s that?)

Stock Tip – Oblong, the company that the presenter, John Underkoffler co-founded.

Related articles

• Real life version of Minority Report’s user interface (boingboing.net)
• What Might the Interface of the Future Look Like (byronmiller.typepad.com)
• Oblong’s TED Talk from 2010 (feld.com)

I was wondering why the ghostbusters made an appearance at the Stephen A. Schwarzman branch of the NYPL Library while I was working. Now I know…

Improv Everywhere – For their latest mission, they brought the movie Ghostbusters to life in the reading room of The New York Public Library at 42 Street. The 1984 movie begins with a scene in the very same room, so we figured it was time for the Ghostbusters to make an encore appearance.

And it was done to raise awareness of Libraries Budget cuts.

Related articles

• Real-Life Ghostbusting In The New York Public Library! (aintitcool.com)
• Ghostbusters Prank in The New York Public Library by Improv Everywhere (laughingsquid.com)
• Back Off, Man, We’re Comedians: ‘Ghostbusters’ Re-enacted at New York Public Library (artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com)

What a response!

America is speaking up! Users of facebook are deleting their accounts in droves. No one really knows how many accounts are being deleted everyday but a small movement is growing and a quit Facebook day is being organized.

Through twitter I learned about the site QuitFaceBookDay.com which is getting a lot of exposure and is set for Memorial day, May 31st.

I can only confirm that when I visit sites like Mashable and Huffington post, the ratio of facebook shares to tweets has dropped significantly. It used to be a pretty equal 1-1 ratio. Now articles are 5x more likely to be tweeted than shared on facebook. So even though facebook will never tell you how many people deleted their accounts I am getting a pretty good idea.

Bloggers all over the web are writing about their experiences deleting their facebook accounts. The web has proven too big for facebook to control and I’m going to estimate that they could be losing 25-50% of their accounts over this.

Just recently Facebook blinked when they publiziced the fact they were conducting an emergency , all hands on deck, meeting to discuss their new privacy features gone horribly wrong. Read more here at “All Facebook – The Unofficial Facebook Resource“.

On top of that a small fledging startup right here in NYC has raised over $100,000 to put together a new open source social media platform. The site is called joindiaspora.com. This is technically vaporware since they announced the product before any work has really been done on it but nevertheless the project has generated huge support.

You are watching the biggest social media platform in the world start to come apart. Is facebook the new myspace?

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Image by pouwerkerk via Flickr

I have been using twitter now since May 2008 when it was mostly an SMS service. Texting was big “way back then” and twitter allowed me to use my old blackberry to communicate with a large group of people via SMS or text message.

The same still holds true today but most people have forgotten about the SMS beginnings of twitter and instead are now using some form of twitter clients on their computers or phones or the twitter website itself to send tweets.

And that’s all cool and OK but it’s like driving an automatic versus a stick shift. Twitter was designed to work on any phone that can text message and that’s where you feel it’s true speed. Just make sure you have that unlimited text messaging plan.

Enjoying twitter through SMS is kind of cumbersome and a little technical but if you master it, there is no faster way to communicate using twitter than through good old fashioned text messaging just like there’s still no way to get the most speed out of a car unless you drive a stick.

So let’s take a walk back through time “2 whole years” and get a history lesson on some of the SMS commands that you can use through twitter. But first you must go to your twitter account on the web, click “settings” and then click “Mobile” to setup your cell phone for twitter. Then you just text to the number twitter assigns to you.

After your setup try some of these commands. They are pretty cool. Just text the highlighted command to the number twitter assigns you and see what happens.

ON – turns ALL SMS notifications on

OFF – turns ALL SMS notifications off.

STOP or QUIT – stops all SMS messages immediately.

ON username – turns on SMS notifications for a specific person. For example, ON DVDaniels

OFF username – turns off SMS notifications for a specific person. Using on/off username from SMS only stops notifications to the place the command comes from; you’ll still collect a person’s updates on the web. You don’t have to use ON/OFF username from your phone, you can also set individual notifications from a person’s profile page, or check your following page and manage all phone notification settings there. For example, OFF DVDaniels

FOLLOW username – this command allows you to start receiving notifications for a specific person by SMS. Following someone from a phone for the first time will also cause you to follow them on the web. Example: follow DVDaniels

LEAVE username – this command allows you to stop receiving notifications for a specific person by SMS.

- Using follow/leave username by SMS is the same as using on/off username. There is no way to stop following a person on the web without visiting their profile and removing them.

D username + message – sends a person a private message that goes to their device, and saves in their web archive. Example: d DVdaniels love your site!

WHOIS username – retrieves the profile information for any public user on Twitter. Example: whois DVDaniels and will also include the month and year the person started using twitter. That’s how I figured out I started in May 2008.

GET username – retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by the person. Example: get DVDaniels

NUDGE username – reminds a friend to update by asking what they’re doing on your behalf. Example: nudge DVDaniels

FAV username – marks a person’s last twitter as a favorite. (hint: reply to any update with FAV to mark it as a favorite if you’re receiving it in real time) Example: fav DVDaniels

Related articles

• A Quick Way To Get Free SMS & Email Alerts Of Your Twitter Mentions (makeuseof.com)
• Mobile Marketing: SMS versus Twitter (amasv.posterous.com)
• Twitter acquires SMS specialist Cloudhopper (infoworld.com)