There are four options:

1. the dial interface to Google Voice – the average call takes about 24 digits !
2. the Google Voice web app – runs in Safari and looks it It suffers from log-in limitations of iPhone Safari, and it’s just a web site
3. the GV Mobile+ native app – only available if you Jailbreak your device
4. the Black Swan VoiceCentral "client side web app" – checks for updates via the web but stores most of it’s function and data in LocalStorage, but suffers from cross-site JavaScript restrictions which puts a "man in the middle" and its $6/yr (every year)

There are likely two directions for Google:

• deliver their own "client side web app" – direct from the GoogleVoice site
• deliver "some other app" that has Google Voice features in it – this might happen given their acquisition of Gismo5

I’d be happy with either of the "possible" Google Voice directions. I’d vote for a real app, especially since I have a Gizmo5 account. I’d vote for a "client side web app" almost as fast !

So, when her laptop came to an untimely death (as if there is timely death for a computer), we had a heart to heart.

The solution was to go with a light weight "nettop" for her desk.

Specifically, she now has an Acer Aspire Revo. It’s the entry level model. (I blogged about using the next level up as my media center). Both of these are tiny by traditional PC standards. Really, truly! – less that 8" square and less than 2" thick. Rather than take up desk space, I just stuck it to the back on the monitor. It dramatically simplified the cables and wires and stuff.

These days she only needs to get to Gmail, Google Reader, Google Apps, Google Calendar, Google tasks, online banking, Facebook, … see a trend? In the past she also had some games. Now, everything is out on the web "in the cloud" as they say. Even more to the point, everything she does can also be done from the iPhone. The advantage to the combination is that everything stays in sync – EFORTLESSLY. If she reads an email on the iPhone, it does not show up as a new email on the computer. Even better, if she adds an appointment on the iPhone, it shows up in her Google Calendar.

To be honest, I’m a bit jealous. About 70% of my work could go out on the web but that would violate "company policy".

The Blackberry is a very good email device but that is such a small part of my mobile socially networked existance in the 21st century it feels I’m carrying an Osborne for a phone.

The new iPhone (likely to be anounced on Monday June 7th) may be my entrance into the hell pit domain of Satin Steve. (perhaps I’ll get rescued some day by Dean and Sam Winchester.) in the meantime I’m now confronted by the data plan shuffle.

Do I sip lightly on the data straw and make a 200MB drink last all month by getting most of my hydration over WiFi? Do I keep a large tank of water at my ready with 2GB?

I have been watching WiFi data usage of my iPod and was surprised that “play all I want” averages out to 60MB/day. At that rate, the 2GB plan would be enough if I never hit a hotspot. Given my typical non-nomadic life, that is a worse case scenario. Odds are high I could manage the entry level plan with only a small amount of attention. Even better, AT&T has been quoted there is no penalty to bounce between data plans so if I did suddenly find myself out on Route 66 in the Impalla, I could get the data I need.

So stay tuned to find out – “Does he get an iPhone or not?” and “How much data does a data deamon really need?”

While this could be a bummer, I’ve found a distinct opportunity – stereoscopy.

It turns out that the iPod is a great platform for viewing stereo images because of its horizontal size when in landscape mode. For a very nearsighted person, just take off your glasses, let your eyes relax, and you will be able to focus on the image without converging your eye’s sight lines. I use a free app called ColorIris for finding images and viewing them on the full screen.

Here are some good examples that work well on the iPhone (and iPod Touch) … architecture, woman with mirrors, Edison, ISU, path in the woods, boy and the rooster.

image credit: The grammar of graphics (L. Wilkinson)

Things were not as "plug-and-play" as I would like. Well, with the 1.9.7.7 update to WPTouch, life is much happier.

Now, if you simply turn off AJAX comments in WPTouch, everything plays well together. No code changes required !

Thanks BraveNewCode ! … look for a little something in your beer fund

Unfortunately, out of the box, things do not play well together. The symptom is that comments that come through the WPTouch experience, will be flagged by WP-Hashcash as potential spam because it did not get a value generated key. There are a lot of background that is not important. There are two ways to make things play well. One has minimal changes but does not support AJAX comments. The other is more invasive but retains all the functions of both plugins.

Minimalist Solution:

WP_Hashcash requires two things in the theme – some JavaScript to be inserted in the header and a hidden field inserted into the comment form. The plugin uses hooks for each of these so the theme only needs to conform to the following.

WP Hashcash relies on the presence of two hooks in your theme, wp_head and comment_form. If your theme doesn’t include these actions, you will need to add them immediately before the </head> and </form> tags respectively.

source: Elliot Back, author of WP-Hashcash

Things are a bit spread out. If you have already enabled your normal theme for WP-Hashcash, then the wp_head() change is already done since WPTouch adds to your normal header. However, WPTouch provides its own comments page so you will need to edit that. It’s location is:

  /public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/wptouch/themes/default/comments.php 

Just add the following before the closing </form> tag:

  <?php do_action('comment_form', $post->ID); ?> 

There is one more thing. In the plugin settings page for WPTouch, you will need to turn off AJAX comments.

Full Function Solution:

You make the changes described above but you do not need to turn off AJAX comments. You then need to make some code changes to both WPTouch and WP-Hashcash.

Back in the same directory as WPTouch’s "comments.php" there is the partner file called "comments-ajax.php". Edit this file in two places – adding one line (seen below in bold green) and appending to another (seen below in bold blue).

  $comment_author = trim($_GET['author']); 
  $comment_author_email = trim($_GET['email']);  
  $comment_author_url = trim($_GET['url']); 
  $comment_content = trim($_GET['comment']); 
  $wphc_value = trim($_GET['wphc_value']); 
  ... 
  $commentdata = compact('comment_post_ID', 'comment_author', 'comment_author_email', 'comment_author_url', 'comment_content', 'comment_type', 'user_ID', 'wphc_value'); 

Now edit the "wp-hashcash.php" file which should be in the root of your plugins directory. Near the very bottom of the file, there is a comment, "Check the wphc values against the last five keys". There are actually two instances of this comment and you will make changes for the one in the "wphc_check_hidden_tag()" function. The code only looks for the "wphc_value" field in the _POSTS data. If you are using WPTouch AJAX comments, the changes above have added this field to the compacted "comment data". Now you need to check both locations as follows:</P?

  $hash_value = $_POST["wphc_value"]; 
  if (!$hash_value) 
    $hash_value = $comment['wphc_value']; 
  $spam = !in_array($hash_value, $options['key']); 
   
  if($options['logging'] && $spam) 
    $comment['comment_content'] .= "\n\n[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us '".($hash_value)."' which is not a hashcash value."; 

I’ve become one of those "smoker bigots" – you know the kind … they quit smoking and *THEN* start preaching all the bad things that smoking does. My conversion was not that I was a smoker; it was the "mobile browser".

I am blogger and user of the web but until about 6 months ago I was mostly on my computer. I now read blogs, feeds, news, and more using my iPod and/or my Blackberry. I use if for Facebook, the weather, Twitter (a little), and most of my personal email. I realized my blog was not as friendly to these mobile devices as it could / should / and eventually would be.

So, I set about to add support for mobile devices and mobile users. It was easy for my blog since it uses Wordpress and there is the WPTouch plug-in that makes it nearly automatic. It added support for the devcies I use most often and I even added support for the Androids of the world. (If you have a mobile device and it is not working with my blog, add a comment and I’ll do my best).

So, now I grumble whenever I hit a website that *does not* have special support for mobile devices. I realize I am being zealous but that has not stopped me from small internal unseen spurts of frustration. Oh well. I guess I could seek counseling.