Finally, someone did a windows laptop right

A few months ago I lamented that Windows laptops were never going to catch up with Apple laptops.  The main feature I thought they would never be able to figure out in Windows 7 was "instant on" - the ability to open the lid of the laptop and instantly be ready to go to work.

Well, someone finally did it.  A new class of "Wintel" notebooks called "Ultrabooks" have just hit the market.  They boast fast solid state drives, a mere 2.2 lbs heavy, no unnecessary DVD drive, high res displays, and best of all INSTANT ON.  You can open the lid and be working one second later.

The current champion is the Asus UX31, and it is a dream.  Way to go Asus, way to keep open hardware and open architecture alive!

Chicago and New York

Great advice I have heard from David Cohen and Brad Feld is to "get out of the office" and meet people.  I believe getting out is a big part of Working On, Not In Your Business.

Increasingly at BlogFrog "getting out" means visits to Chicago and New York where a lot of our media connections are.  I love these two cities.  Chicago has the amazing skyscrapers, but its streets are wide and clean.  New York never ceases to amaze me with its transportation.  I had 6 meetings one day, often with just 30 minutes between them and located across town.  I had no problem getting there in about 15 minutes via the subway. 

Amazing conference, amazing partner meetings.  It was great to get out!

The 42nd floor of the Swissotel in Chicago looking East at Lake Michigan

Our table at the "School of Word Of Mouth Marketing"

The streets of New York City are packed 24 hours a day

An awesome quote in an underground gym

I took a phone meeting on a street corner near Times Square leeching wifi from Starbucks

Fun at SXSW in Austin Texas

I have been to some big blogging conferences, but I've never experienced anything like the madness that is SXSW.  I knew this was an exciting conference when I looked around the plane and saw 8 other entrepreneurs from the Boulder area on the same flight.  The top 5 things I learned:

1.  SXSW takes place all over town.  Be prepared to travel up to 5 miles between two sessions you want to see.  You definitely get a lot of walking in.

2.  The best meetings aren't on any conference agenda.  They are the meetings you set up before hand with all the influencers who are going to be there.

3.  Group texting is all the rage these days and is great for conferences

4.  Hotels fill up early - book at least 6 weeks in advance to get a good affordable spot.

5.  Locals put on a great show.  Find the local companies and let them know you are going to be there and set up a time to meet.

 CNN essentially built a diner across the street from the convention center, just to use it for 9 days

 me with Guy Kawasaki, one of the highlights of the trip

 Austin is a beautiful city

Erik and I enjoying the local food

The killer feature Windows is missing

The iPhone has changed everything, even how I expect my laptop to work.  When I pull my iPhone out of my pocket, it is INSTANTLY ready to work.  There is no spinning hourglass while I "please stand by to resume my iPhone session".

When I open my laptop, I expect it to do the same thing.  I expect it to be instantly ready to go.  It frustrates me that I have to wait about 45 seconds while windows "resumes".  With today's low power memory, there should be little or no time to get me back to what I was working on.

Apple has nailed this in their laptops as well.  When you open a Macbook, it is ready to go.  I've avoided the switch to Apple for so long, but if Windows doesn't figure out a way to get instant on, I may have to switch.

That's the Apple Trojan horse strategy.  They get you hooked on their smaller, less expensive devices, and then you eventually buy the more expensive pieces (laptops & desktops).

Why is preschool more expensive than college?

This week we looked into preschools for our youngest son.  Our favorite preschool comes with a hefty price tag of $320 dollars a month.  This isn't a snobby private school, just a normal preschool open to everyone.  It's only half day, and four days a week.

That's $1280 a "semester" for a toddler to learn his letter sounds and count to 25.  I just looked at the local community college and it's only $1140 per semester for a full-time student.  Now granted this is a community college, and regular colleges are about twice that, but it's still an accredited institution with a qualified degree!

The fact remains that I can give my child a college education for less than it costs to send him to preschool.  Does this seem right?  Have you had the same experience?

  

An Open Letter To Camera Manufacturers

Dear Point and Shoot Camera Manufacturers,

If you do not get with the times, in one year you will be out of business.  Ever since I purchased a smart phone that had a decent camera (and video camera), my point-and-shoot camera has sat on the shelf gathering dust. Why am I going to fumble around with another device, when I can instantly upload and share the pictures and video I capture with my smart phone? My phone is always connected to the internet where I can instantly email or post my pictures to my social networks.

 You expect me to plug my camera into my computer, draaaag them over to the right folders, THEN share them to my networks? I don't think so.  I barely plug in my iPhone once every few months.

And I'm not alone. This Christmas I didn't see one point-and-shoot camera, only cell phones and digital SLRs. And we're not just talking about my tech savvy brothers and sisters, we're talking about MY PARENTS as well. When my parents have adopted a technology trend, you know it has gone mainstream.

If you need more proof, look at the number of photos being uploaded to Flickr, and what camera they were taken with:

Graph courtesy of TechCrunch

Every single point-and-shoot camera is in steep decline.  What is the most popular camera on Flickr?  That would be the iPhone 3G, not a camera at all but a cell phone.

There is a solution.  If my camera were as connected as my phone, I would consider pulling it out of the bag in the name of a better photo.  You have to beat the phone at its own game.  Being an Electrical Engineer by education, I decided to dive a little deeper and see how hard it would be, and how much it would cost to add wireless connectivity to my camera.

The first concern was size: if adding wireless connectivity was going to double the size of the camera, then obviously this would be a deal killer.  It didn't take me long to find a wireless adapter (an N version, the fastest there is) that is 1/2 inch tall and 1/4 inch wide, about the size of a pencil eraser.  Surely size isn't the problem here.

Then what about cost?  I could easily find small wireless adapters that could be purchased for $20, and probably much less at the volumes that camera manufacturers would order.  I know I would pay $20 extra to have a connected camera.  

What about software?  It would be a pain to type in your wireless network password and your email address and password using the camera arrow keys, but since I only had to do it once, I would manage.  After that, you would just need software to support Facebook and the top 5 email clients (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and MobileMe).  Remember, these are personal devices so no corporate Exchange client support would be required.

So there you have it camera manufacturers.  For $20 and 1/2" of board space you can at least prolong your industry.  But you better hurry, I'm getting pretty accustomed to pulling out this cell phone, and like most consumers I'm not going to buy the first thing available on store shelves.

Thank you,

Concerned Consumer

Talking to your users

This last week I had the amazing experience to send out a sincere email to all our users and ask them for their feedback. How are we doing? What could we do better? What ideas do YOU have to take BlogFrog to the next level?

The response was overwhelming with 100's of replies.  I've embedded the discussion below (a new BlogFrog feature), which only contains half the responses as the other half were direct emails to me (we encouraged people to respond using whatever was easiest).

We just sent out a very special BlogFrog newsletter, one we've wanted to do for a long time.

No fancy graphics, no promotions, just a honest and open letter from me to you, our 50,000 bloggers (and many more users!)

We'll share a little of our story (how this all started), and ask for a favor - we want your help in growing BlogFrog from 50,000 to 5 Million!   

So watch your inbox, and we'll talk soon!  You can reply below, or you can start a new discussion!  Thanks so much.

Visit the "Excited to get your feedback" Discussion