Sean McCann

“Sent from my iPhone” is a line of text that I am seeing on an increasing number of emails in my inbox. The line is also on a large number of emails that I send out. What does this short piece of text mean?

When you get a new iPhone the default signature for outgoing email is “Sent from my iPhone.” From Apple’s perspective this is a viral tactic to increase product awareness. It is a free advertisement. BlackBerry devices attach something like “Sent via BlackBerry from AT&T”, and a large majority of users leave this default signature.

It is extremely easy to change the default signature on the iPhone. In fact, most people have already created signatures on their web and desktop email clients. Are they leaving the default signature because they do not know how to change it; or are they attaching it to every outgoing email for a reason?

I can only think of two logical reasons for keeping the default signature:

1. They want to show off that they have an iPhone
2. They want to be excused for typos or short sentences

Let’s be honest. “Sent from my iPhone” really means “I’m not going to bother to proofread and correct this because it would take me an extra 30 seconds.”

Matt from 37signals

What are your thoughts on mobile email signatures?

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Sent from my iPhone

This post was originally published on the Lift Interactive blog on 17 August 2010.

Netflix is coming to Canada this fall! Netflix announced that they will be expanding their streaming video service to Canada. Currently Netflix offers rental-by-mail and video streaming to their US customers starting at $4.99 per month.They stream HD content using Microsoft VC1AP encoding at a bitrate of between 2600kbps and 3800kbps.

If you are looking for Blu-ray rental-by-mail, then I highly suggest you check out Zip.ca.

Rogers announced their data plans for the iPad 3G which will be released in Canada on May 28. The plans are slightly more expensive than what AT&T offers to Americans but are a lot less than I thought they would be. They are offering three options as seen in the table below.

After using the iPad (without 3G) for the last five weeks I think I am going to stick to Wi-Fi only. It is very rare that I’m in a location without wireless internet access so it fits my lifestyle just fine.

After raising $11.6 million in funding yesterday, Blippy.com has a new problem on their hands. A clever person did a search on Google for ‘site:blippy.com “from card”‘ and was displayed the credit card numbers of several users. According to VentureBeat the only information exposed was Citibank-issued MasterCard numbers.

I think Blippy is a great idea but it’s definitely scary for people to do any public financial activity online. I hope they can overcome this quickly and continue to build a cool product.

The Apple iPad hasn’t even been out for one week in the United States and I already have one in my very own hands. Unfortunately for us Canadians, the iPad is not scheduled to be released until about a month from now but I just couldn’t wait. Earlier this week I asked a friend in Texas to ship one up for me and it was in my hands in Edmonton by Friday afternoon.

Literally the second I turned it on I realized just how useful this device is and how it will fit into my lifestyle just perfectly. It creates an easy way for me to consume media that was just too difficult to before. I can now quickly digest high quality news content from USA Today, New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Prior to having the iPad I would have had to boot up my laptop and go to each of their websites. This would took significantly longer and I wasn’t able to be nearly as mobile with the laptop. I wouldn’t even have bothered reading those sites on my iPhone. It is just too slow and small.

Games are excellent! Several game developers have utilized the giant screen perfectly. They are creating a new style of game that just wasn’t possible on the iPhone. Some early favorites are Flight Control HD and GodFinger.

iBooks looks pretty cool but I just haven’t been able to get into reading long pieces of text on an electronic device yet. I am sure I will adapt as time goes on.

There are several apps like Epicurious and imdb that use the split screen view of the iPad perfectly. This split screen view is a genius user interface that just wasn’t possible on the iPhone. I am very excited to see some more apps take better advantage of this.

I haven’t even had the iPad for 9 hours so it is unfair to do any sort of review. I’ll try and do a review after I feel I have used the device more.

I just moved into a new place just over a week ago. Since that time I have been without internet and have been forced to use my iPhone to tether the internet connection to my laptop. I am nearly at my 6GB monthly limit and still don’t how internet at home! I have spend the last 10 days trying my hardest to get my connection up and running. Three Telus service calls later and I am still without internet!

The person that lived in my suite previously did not have Telus service, so the line was not setup. As I further learned, Shaw Cable had disconnected the Telus lines to my suite. This meant that we were going to need to get into the electrical room in the parking garage in order to hook the wires back up. You would think that this would be a simple task but it has proven not to be.

I called the property manger and was told that they would not allow the Telus employee to take the key, it had to be me and I would be forced to put down a $100 deposit to use the key. Unfortunately I work and would never have an opportunity to get the key, thus eliminating my chance of getting internet service in the near future.

I understand that they want to protect the key, but it’s simply a key to a room mostly full of Telus equipment. You would think that they would allow Telus to borrow a key to get in!

My journey continues tomorrow on my quest at getting internet sometime this month!

I just moved into a new home and need some help figuring out what colours to go with. I’m also interested in hearing any suggestions on furniture, specifically a couch.

The new place is considered “New York loft style”, but it’s pretty much just ten foot ceilings and stainless steel appliances. I’m not exactly sure you can call that a NY loft. There is no carpet; all the flooring is a dark hardwood. Below are some photos.

If you signed into your Facebook account in the last few days you should have noticed a popup that asked you to review your privacy settings. Facebook claimed that they “are making some changes to give you more control of your information and help you stay connected”. I’d like to translate this for you. Facebook is trying to trick you into sharing more private information with the public in a desperate move to compete with Twitter.

Twitter has recently signed big deals with companies like Microsoft (Bing) and Google to allow access to the “firehose” of tweets. These companies have already integrated real time tweets into their search results. I feel Facebook doesn’t want to get left behind so they are trying everything they can to trick users into sharing more content with “everybody”. The more users they have sharing their status updates and personal information with the world, the more valuable their product is in terms of “firehose” type deals with other companies.

You are now able to determine who can see each individual post you create on Facebook. In the publisher box you will now notice a drop down that allows you to select who you want to see the content you are about to publish. Always make sure that you double check what option is selected!

Please review your privacy settings and adjust them to what you feel most comfortable.

Facebook Privacy History

Facebook was built with the philosophy that you post information so that only the people around you can see it. The people around you may include friends, family, fellow students or co-workers. In the early days of of social networking people were not comfortable sharing their information with even those people. Facebook came around at the right time and provided a safe and secure way to share private information with only the people you wanted to see it. People trusted Facebook and Facebook made people more open because of this trust.

Twitter was build with the philosophy that anything you post could be seen by anybody in the world. People have used Twitter since the beginning knowing this.

Fundamental Differences Between Facebook and Twitter

In simple terms Facebook is where your real life friends and family are and Twitter is where people of similar interest are.

For most people the majority of your “friends” are simply people that just happened to go to the same school as you, or just happened to play on the your hockey team, or just happened to live across the street. Although you may have a great relationship with these friends, they generally do not share all the same interests as you. Facebook is a great with to keep in touch with these people through photos and status updates.

If you are really into a niche subject areas like “quantum physics” and love sharing content about that subject, Facebook probably isn’t the best place to do so. Mostly likely the high majority of your friends would have no idea what you were posting. Twitter is a great place for these posts because as time goes on people will stumble across your content, see value in it and follow your future updates. Twitter allows you to truly be yourself. If you have an unique interest in posting content about controversial topics such as religion or politics then you don’t have to worry about upsetting friends and family. People of similar opinion will flock to you if you are mostly quality content.

Your Thoughts

What do you think the difference between Facebook and Twitters is? Do you use either or both products? Let’s discuss this in the comments.

On September 30 I ordered RAM from Crucial.com for my MacBook Pro. I got an email that evening from Crucial saying the the package has departed Boise, Idaho, is en route to the destination (Camrose, Alberta, Canada), and should arrive on October 1, the next day. I was very surprised by the fast shipping. I wasn’t expecting the receive my RAM until next week, so seeing that it would arrive the next morning got me excited.

October 1

I woke up on October 1 to see that the package made it to Edmonton, AB (40 minutes away) and was in transit. Everything seemed to be going great until the next update on the tracking website showed that the package was heading off to Memphis, TN. Yes, the package came within 60 KM to me, but FedEx decided to send it on a 7000 KM journey. There is no good reason for this. This is a huge harm to the environment and also adds a huge cost to FedEx, which in turn raises our shipping fees.

October 2

Today is October 2 and I just got my package. I must say that two-day shipping is very fast and I am pleased with FedEx’s service in terms of speed but  the journey my package took was not exceptable. I could have easily got my package yesterday but for some reason FedEx found it necessary to send it on a 7000 KM journey around the continent. All together my package went 8500 KM, when the true distance from the origin to the destination was less than 1000 KM. That 8.5x more travel than necessary. 850% more fuel was used than needed to send my package 1000 KM.

Who’s Can I Blame?

Do you blame an algorithm that a software engineer at FedEx developed? Do you blame a FedEx employee in Edmonton who accidentally put the package in the wrong pile? Or is this simply how FedEx thinks packages should be transported?

Were They Purposly Slowing Me Down?

Perhaps I didn’t pay enough for shipping and they didn’t want my package to get to me in less than 24 hours. Maybe they wanted to slow down my package so that I’d have an incentive to get a more expensive shipping method next time. This is probably the true reason why my package took a detour but I still don’t find it acceptable to waste fuel. They can simply hold the package and the sorting facility for longer if they want to slow down the package.

Does It Really Matter?

Does it really matter? I got my package in two days! I am very happy with the speed of FedEx and I will probably use them again but with this waste of fuel, do you think that we should be upset or just accept the methods of this company? Let me know in the comments.

Taxes

Since this package was from the United States I had to pay GST on the item. GST in Canada is 5% so on my $100 package the GST would be $5. Since FedEx becomes your “broker”, they charge a broker fee of $10 + GST. All together they charged me $15.50 for a $100 package. I didn’t want the driver to have to wait at my door so I was forced to give him a $20 bill. This means I ended up paying 20% extra on this item! I don’t mind paying the 5% GST but the FedEx broker charge is ridiculous.

I am pleased to announce that my first iPhone application has been approved and is now in the iTunes App Store for FREE! The application is called GPS Todo.

What is it?

GPS Todo is a location based to-do task manger.

Traditional to-do apps combine all of your to-do tasks into a single list. lodü is different, it uses the GPS in the device to display to-do tasks relevant to your location. No longer do you have to see a task to “clear kitchen” when you are at work. You will only be reminded of things that relevant to you at your current location.

Please Download It!

If you think that the app sounds cool, please get it FREE! I have many new features that I am currently putting into the next update.

Feedback

I’d love to hear all of your feedback about the app. If you have an idea, beef, or bug reports please head over to Get Satisfation to let me know. If you’d like to contact me in private, you can do so with the contact form.