Is it sad that I just had an amazing user experience by a totally automated system? Surprised the hell out of me I will admit.

As I'll be out of the office for a week or so I had stumbled about on the website of our local daily newspaper looking for the form they used to have (which has now disappeared) and was a little irritated at having to actually "phone" them to request a vacation delivery stoppage. Once connected to reception the automated system informed me of a 5 minute wait for a customer service rep (yikes), or, "she" could help me with the following things - vacation hold being one of them. What the heck I figured, I'll give Sally the Voice a go.

The cool thing was that it was all voice recognition stuff, no punching in numbers at all. Simply speaking "vacation hold" after the list of items selected that option, then she requested my phone number to be spoken to her, and then my house number. After that she wanted to know the date of stoppage and the date to resume. What cracked me up were the responses from her, they varied from "got it" to "thank you" to "great, thanks". And even funnier was the fake typing noise when she responded with "just a sec while I check the system for your account (insert fake typing noise here)" and "entering your request into the system now (more fake typing noise)". Too funny.

Very smooth and easy to use and the whole process left me with a "huh - now why can't all customer service calls be that easy and cool". Coolness aside though - let's just hope it works.

Well, finally I found the time to update my mac book pro to OS X 10.5 (Leopard). After researching the installation recommendations, and realizing I have so many 3rd party apps installed, I opted to go the archive and install route rather than the upgrade route. Upgrade seems to be fraught with potential problems for too many folks. And even though I had backed up my system last night, I choose to also burn some DVDs containing important documents and other work files - stuff that I would need right away. Just in case. I've lost too much data over the years not to be paranoid in this regard ;)

So once satisfied that I had my safety net in place, away I leapt and began the install. The entire installation process took just under 2 hours and went very smoothly. Wireless connectivity was a bit of an issue, but I had the solution in hand before actually beginning the install and was able to correct the issue right after. My wireless signal is now stronger than it was with Tiger, go figure. And the system itself seems much quicker as well. No complaints here in that regard.

Next up, but which I'll leave to another day, is to install Vista and XP under Parallels - good times.

So it's been a few days that I've had and have been using my iPod touch and not only is it a joy to behold but also a joy to use. The usability is beyond compare. One of the first things I set up was the web apps that I use all the time: Twitter, Remember the Milk, mail, weather; and bookmarks to the sites I visit all the time: Google, gMail, Facebook. And we're off and running. Many people have complained that there's no native mail client - and while certainly that would have made things easier, there is an online mail client app that can be used to access your pop mail account, and it works very well. This device is truly beyond functional for me - as long as there's an open wireless access point.

Resources:

• Twitter for iPhone/iPod Touch


• Remember the Milk for iPhone/iPod Touch (must have a pro Remember the Milk account)


• Mail app for iPod Touch (Mailcoaster)


• Weather app for iPhone/iPod Touch

So I have been on twitter, pownce and jaiku for a while now and I have to say that for the most part, twitter seems to be the microblogging tool of choice for me.

While Jaiku is way cool, there is no critical mass of "friends" using it, therefore it gets sorely neglected.

Pownce has the critical mass of friends as members, but they seem to prefer twitter as well, so my Pownce stream is a very eclectic mix of unknowns. Also, Powncers seem to like to fileshare more but frankly, I just haven't been able to get into powncing. As well, I've heard the powncers complain that twitterers (twitter users) are too "unfriendly" but I'm not sure that's the case at all. Maybe we're just a little more self-absorbed ;) Don't get me wrong though - I'm certainly not slamming pownce at all, but rather my preference is with twitter at this time where the critical mass of "friends" or others I want to follow are happily tweeting away. I think what it basically comes down to is that twitter does one thing and does it well. It's simple and it's easy.

I confess I like the continuous stream-of-consciousness feed of tweets from those that I follow and yes, there are random gems in there which make me literally laugh out loud, and yes, I have been pointed to interesting articles and apps on occasion. I don't find it pointless at all, it's rather more like the background chatter of a large office setting - but it's an office that spans the globe. It's very cool to watch as people are tweeting about heading to bed, or to lunch, or home after work, within minutes of each other, while we in North America are just starting to wake up and come online. Soon you find yourself falling into the rhythm of worklife routines around the world. It really brings the global community into perspective. I beg to differ with those who complain that twitter is pointless,asinine. It's also very interesting to follow the tweets of conference goers who are summarizing the panels they are attending - it's like virtually being there and so much useful information is sent around!

As well, I've linked twitter with my Remember the Milk account and can easily use it to update my task lists / reminders. Very handy! By linking the two, I can text a direct twitter message to my rtm "friend" which then gets posted to my rtm account. Nice. Easy. Useful.

It's a great way to keep in touch, keep in the loop, and yes, even increase productivity. But don't take my word for it - try it for yourself and make up your own mind.

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Learn more about twitter here: Big Juicy Twitter Guide