Feel free to get in touch if you have any follow-up questions.

Aesthetics aside…

It seems like the iPad’s keyboard, in landscape mode, leaves you no choice but to hold the device in one hand and hunt-n-peck with the other. What if the keyboard was split into two, and placed in the lower-right and left corners? Then, you could hold it with both hands, and type a la the iPhone.

It’d be a sacrifice to the key size, for sure, but it might be more comfortable and functional.

For instance, a call from my parents which starts as “Hi, Scott, it’s Mom” is transcribed to “My god, it’s Mom!” Or, “Hi, Scotty, it’s your Dad,” becomes “Hi, scaredy.”

I shudder to mention the call I got from “Dr. Balls office.”

For those who don’t have Google Voice, I thought I’d share. Here’s one I received tonight:

Hey the election for the tenant Governor of the little Scott, Legoland, stands out from the crowd other candidates talk about the economy, but Democrats Godly code is doing something about it right now. Scott is holding job fair is to help Illinois. Please get back to work. Scott is not a career politician use of small businesses and the father of Rod must resign a citizens group just want to remove Robert boy from office. Both Democrats. Scott Lee Cohen for. Lieutenant governor. I’m Scott Lee calling tonight group it’s not.

If this sort of thing tickles your fancy, you might want to check out these blogs devoted to GV transcription snafus.

Imagine that Netflix offers its subscribers the ability to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on their TV via their Nintendo Wii. You can choose from a library of some new releases, lots of classics and TV episodes. There are no advertisements or trailers, and movies start in as little as 30 seconds. You can fast-forward, rewind, and pause or watch again. The movies & TV episodes you instantly watch are included in your Netflix membership for no additional fee.

Some things to keep in mind:

• You will need a Netflix subscription
• You will need a Netflix Instant Streaming Disc (available for free). This disc must be put into your Nintendo Wii whenever you want to instantly watch movies and TV episodes from Netflix over the Internet
• Your Nintendo Wii must be connected to the Internet

If this functionality were available, how likely would you or someone in your household be to get a Netflix Instant Streaming Disc for the Nintendo Wii (available for free) in order to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on your TV?

I consider myself lucky: I was let out of my contract after a several-month long dispute over AT&T’s quality of service (or lack thereof). Look above; that picture shows what I saw every day: zero to one bars of service within a 1-mile radius of my office. Anyone who’s been on the phone with me me has earned the purple-heart-of-patience award for tolerating my dropped calls (sometimes as many as 2-3 times per chat). And this phone is my only phone, the one I depend on to run my business.

I expect I’m not the only one with this problem. I’ve spoken with you too; your reception sucks.

How did I do it?

I don’t mean for this to be a how-to for those who wish to sneak out of their contract. Mine was a legitimate problem of poor service. If yours is too, here’s what you can do:

• Call AT&T (1-800-331-0500 or 611 from your wireless phone).
• Ask them to open a support ticket. It’s important that you start documenting your problem.
• Remind them that they have the data to confirm this issue: call start/end times and dropped call logs. (Updated: Thanks, Paul)
• Wait at least a month. Let them try and resolve the problem—it’s only fair.
• If they can’t resolve your problem, demand compensation or to be released from your contract.

Seems like common sense, eh? It is.

An open support ticket is the key; it’s your documentation that there’s a problem, and proof that it hasn’t been resolved in a sufficient period of time.

Remember: it’s reasonable to expect that your service works; reasonable to ask someone to repair it if broken; and reasonable to leave if it can’t be fixed.

Good luck.

Note to the RIAA: take a page from the gaming industry play book of the 90′s; add a dash of entertainment to your shame…..shamertainment. Why not get Metallica to create a PSA on file sharing, “The Thing That Should Not Be (Copied)?”

P.S. We ARE the posse of the future.

Thanks to the iPod (and now iPhone), I get to live that memory, or at the very least I can do my best Bee Gees impersonation.

All that aside, given my new business venture, I feel the need for a corporate theme song. Perhaps something like the one that Apple created for its 1984 roll-out of the Macintosh computer. Wow.

It’s worth a read of the YouTube liner notes to get the full context. Thanks, Sandy, for passing the gem along.

This past Thursday, I attended my first Tech Cocktail, a quarterly Chicago technology meetup, organized by Frank Gruber and Eric Olson. I have to say, as someone new to these type of events, it was great and incredibly worthwhile. What finer way to spend a Thursday night than to drink free draft beer from a glow-in-the-dark mug, while engaging in uber-dweeb conversations with some of Chicago’s brightest technology minds?

Just last month, Sandy and I attended the Chicago Beta meetup at Goose Island Brewery. Organized monthly, Chicago Beta provides a forum for local startups to present themselves in a 60-second pitch to fellow startup peers. As good luck would have it, Tappity won the pitch award, which included an upcoming interview on BusinessPOV.com and 2 free classes at Digital Bootcamp.

Now, I’ve always been told that "networking" is the key to becoming a successful business person. To some, that means being a social whore, slathering the world with their business cards, and hoping to find a person or organization who will propel them to riches, or in some cases a mouth full of gold-capped teeth. But to me, and what has become apparent over the last few weeks, is that networking has less to do with the success of your business and more joy of connecting to people with like minds. Through TC4, Chicago Beta and SXSW, I’ve met some great friends, who are sharing in the same experiences that I am, trying to create websites from nothing, and learning the ropes of establishing a small business. Chicago provides a wonderful, non-competitive environment for technology, and it’s apparent when you attend one of these meetups.

For those who live in Chicago, I highly recommend attending one of the meetups listed above. For those who live elsewhere, take a moment to learn about meetups in your area — it’ll be well worth your collective whiles.

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