Just like the desktop version, the iPhone version provides you the ability auto-fill passwords, logins and forms with one tap of the finger.

The iPhone version of RoboForm has the ability to sync with the desktop version via RoboForm Online. Taking your passwords with you when you are on the go is awesome. In order to use this app you must have a RoboForm Online account, it’s a requirement. No worries, you can signup for a free RoboForm Online account if you don’t have one.

The only downside of the app is you are forced into using the integrated mobile browser once you’ve login into the website you accessed using RoboForm. If it had all the feature of Safari then things would be OK, but it doesn’t.

I give this app two thumbs up for it’s simplicity and it’s ability to make me more productive. I love it and I wouldn’t leave home with out it.

Google Mobile images

Originally uploaded by factoryjoe

The latest update for the Google Mobile app on the iPhone includes a ninja. They call this out as specific feature update. You can find the ninja by opening the application to the search screen on your iPhone. You’ll see the Ninja appear as one of A. Googlers comments. Be patient, it might take awhile for him to show up. Trust me, he is there.  I would like to thank @chrismessina for pointing this out to me. Chris was also one of the first people to find the Bells & Whistle Easter egg in the previous Google MoApp update prior to Google announcement.

Check out the screen capture of the mobile ninja on my phone:

iPhone Screen Capture of Google Mobile Ninja

UPDATE: If you want more Google Ninja, check out the ninja shirt I made at Zazzle.com.

It took me awhile, but I finally figured out how to set up my Ping.fm account in Tweetie. I thought I would take a moment to write up a quick guide to walk you through the process of setting up your Ping.fm in Tweetie in case you are having trouble. The process is simple you just need to have faith…

 Learn more about the iPhone Twitter app Tweetie. (You’ll need iTunes to to view this page.)

A Step by Step Guide to Setting Up Ping.fm on the iPhone Twitter App Tweetie:

1. Launch Tweetie on your iPhone. (Please Note: The settings for Ping.fm are not located in the Tweetie Settings under Settings. But, you will need to have the multiple accounts option turned on for this to work. That is found under settings.)
2. Tap the Accounts button in the upper left corner of the app.
   
   
3. Tap the Edit button in the upper left hand corner of the app.
   
   
4. Tap on the Twitter account you would like to attach to your Ping.fm account to. Do not worry touching the account name will not “Delete” the account.
   
   
5. Tap on the Advanced options.
   
   
6. Tap on the Ping.fm option.
7. Enter in your Mobile Key from Ping.fm. Go to http://ping.fm/key to get your key.
   
   
8. Success!!! You should now see an Authorized alert pop up.
   
   

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

P.S. I don’t know about you, but I’m really digging the new Dark theme for Tweetie. It’s Nice.

Google does believe in Easter after all. Apparently after a late night of eating cake in Zurich, the Mobile App Team at Google felt the need to add a few extra “Bells and Whistles” to Google Mobile App. The kicker is they hid the menu to these features and “neglected” to tell anyone about it. Last week on News Years Day they came clean by announcing the moApp Easter Egg for the iPhone. The post entitled “Ring in the New Year with Bells and Whistles” on Google Mobile Blog gives a little back story and a general outline on how to enable this feature in Google’s moApp. I really hope the announcement was their way of continuing the Easter Egg tradition they started last new years.

For the record, the Bells and Whistles feature was discovered prior to last week’s announcement from Google, which is contrary to what some have already posted. Chris Messina of Citizen Agency (twitter @factoryjoe) posted his discovery on Waxy.org, the blog of Andy Baio the founder of upcoming.org. Chris noted the different options listed in the Preferences.plist xml file under the kGMOPrefGroupSecretSettings node on Nov 18, 2008 almost a month and half prior to Google’s 1/1/09 announcement and only four days after the release of Google moApp version 0.3.144 which included the Easter Egg.

Google’s post is a little vague on how to access or activate these new features. Since their post leaves a few unanswered questions I thought I would take a moment to put together a Step by Step guide on how to unlock the Bells and Whistles Easter Egg in Google’s Mobile Application on your Apple 3G iPhone.

Step by Step Guide to Opening Bells and Whistles Menu

1. Tap the Google moApp icon on your iPhone. Visit the App Store icon on your iPhone and search for ‘Google Mobile App’ or visit the iTunes store if you do not have it yet.
   
2. Tap on the Settings icon, located on the lower right hand side of the page.
   
3. Here’s where the suggested perseverance from the mobile team comes in to play… once the Settings screen loads start flicking the screen in an up ward motion.
   
4. Don’t stop until you see the new Bells & Whistles button appear below the About Button.
   
5. Don’t give up! Based on my testing, it took about 100 short quick flicks before the button appeared. When I tried it again and it seemed to show up quicker if I did long sweeping stroke.
   

Bells and Whistles Summary

• Theme Color – Let’s you select a different theme color for Google’s moApp interface.
  
• Sounds – Let’s you change the feedback sounds when using the voice recognition search functionality. Your two new options are Chicken and Monkey. I went with Monkey.
  
• Live Waveform – Turning on Live Waveform displays the signal pattern of your voice as you are speaking into the iPhone while performing a Voice Search vs. showing you just the static pattern when analyzing your request.
  
• Open Links in App – This option let’s you open search result links within the Google moApp interface instead of launching Safari. This is the most useful feature contained within the Easter Egg. Unfortunately it this option does not seem to affect the links within the App area. Let me know if I’m doing something wrong. 
  

I hope you found this helpful. I really do hope this is truly a new tradition for Google. If so, i’m look forward to next years New Year’s Easter Egg Hunt presented by Google.

The upgrade process was pretty easy. I went from WP version 2.1 to 2.7. I really enjoy the new admin UI. It was pretty easy to set up the plug-ins with integrated download plug-in feature. I’m going to leave the default theme in place until I can design my own.

Now that I’ve completed the upgrade I’m going to start on the redesign.

Learn more about the latest WordPress 2.7, and why they called it Coltrane by visiting the WP Blog @
http://wordpress.org/development/2008/12/coltrane/

 The idea for mobLine hit me during Alan M. Weber’s keynote address at the 2006 LinkShare Symposium in New York. Alan shared his thoughts on how to successfully lead a business into the new era of commerce fueled by a global economy. He covered a wide range of topics during his keynote, but a few things really struck a chord with me; the use of information as a catalyst for change, the importance of speed in innovation, globalization is something to embrace, the way we do business is going to change and the world is shrinking because of The Internet. Even though his keynote was a bit ominous, I agreed with assessment of the future. Near the end of his keynote, Alan made a statement along the lines of; “The invention of The Internet was just the start. The next great innovation will come sooner than you think.”

Overall his keynote was thought provoking. It got me thinking about how I could embrace this new era of commerce in a global economy. I really liked the idea of making use of web enabled mobile devices to help create my stateless business. Then it dawned on me how open the mobile web was ripe for new business ventures. I viewed it as Columbus’ New World, an undiscovered country with huge potential. I thought of the name mobLine as a cleaver play on words to distinguish / brand the difference between shopping on the World Wide Web and shopping on the mobile web. Instead of shopping online with your computer, you would be shopping mobLine (Mobile + Online = mobLine, get it?) with your phone. Unfortunately I got wrapped up with other things after the conference and I never did anything with this idea.

4Q of last year I launched a mobile version of The Woodwind & Brasswind website on the mPoria Mobile Commerce Platform, which I highly recommend if you are looking for a painless solution for mobile ecommerce. Two things quickly became very obvious to me; people are willing to buy musical instruments from a mobile commerce site and true multi-channel integration is tough because the tools, services and technologies are still young.  As an example I want to create a mobile version of my email to add into my multipart newsletter. I think it be great if someone subscribed to my newsletter and when they viewed it from a web browser they got my .com links, but if the viewed the same email from a mobile device it would have my .mobi links instead. Current web standards for email do not allow me to pull this off. 

The mobile industry is still young and standards are still being defined.  My goal with mobLine.org is to create a shared resource for all things m-commerce. The site is not live yet, but it should be soon. I’ll keep you posted as things develop. I’m looking for help if anyone is interested.

I give this wp plugin 5 stars for ease of use and setup.

You can download WordPress Mobile Edition from the Plugins Directory at WordPress.org. Click here to learn more about this great little plugin.

Connect Your Laptop to a AT&T Blackjack & Use It As A Modem
The following instructions were pulled from howardforums.com. This process was developed by one of the forum members named chudy2. It appears most people have been able to set ICS up with no issues. Make sure you do your own research. It is important you feel comfortable with making these kind of changes to your phone.

Standard Disclaimer: I must state that I take no responsibility for the actions of anyone reading this blog. If something of yours breaks because you did something I talked about, it’s your fault, not mine. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

How’s your confidence, are you ready to pull this off?

1. First and foremost you’ll need to application unlock your phone. Read my earlier post on how to unlock your Blackjack. If you do not unlock your phone none of the following recommendations will work.
2. Reset your phone.
3. Download the following file to your computer by right clicking the file name and select Save Target As. WARNING: If you download this file using IE you might have to change the file extension from .ics to .cab before saving it.
   •  Download: BJ.WM6.ICS.Enable.cab (89.6 KB)
4. Install the BJ.WM6.ICS.Enable cab file (it might ask you to reboot)
5. Navigate to \My Documents and click on the certs.cab file
6. RESET THE DEVICE!
7. Go to start and run internet sharing.

Let me know if you have any issues. 

What’s Internet Connection Sharing or ICS?
You may wonder why you need ICS on Samsung Blackjack. I hope the following helps answer that question. Internet Connection Sharing enables you to access the Internet by connecting your computer laptop to your Blackjack phone.  This is also referred to as “tethering” your device to your cell phone. As long as you have a data plan, it negates the need for you to purchase an extra cellular modem. ICS also allows for Mac & Linux users to connect to the Blackjack since they don’t have ActiveSync.

I know my earlier post on “How to Perform an Application Unlock on the Blackjack” caused some confusion because some of you thought I was talking about a SIM unlock. I’m hoping this information helps.

How to Unlock Your Blackjack:

1. First you’ll need to get your Network Control Key. The Network Control Key is a 8 digits unlock code. There are two paths to get your NCK. You can either call AT&T or ask for it. You may have to ask them to put you through to their tech department.  If you’ve never signed up for AT&T’s Service they may not give the code because your not a customer. The other way to get the code is to contact a cell phone unlocking service. They usually charge around $20 to get this code for you.
2. Once you get the Network Control Key power off the phone.
3. Remove the SIM card.
4. Power on the phone back on.
5. Enter #7465625*638*
6. Enter Network Control Key.
7. Press “OK” Soft key, not the Send or OK hard key.
8. Power off the phone.
9. Reinsert the new SIM card.

Based on the response from people that have tried this I assume it works. I have no need to unlock my phone because I live in the States and I enjoy using AT&T as my services provider. So please let me know if this does not work on either the original Samsung Blackjack or the Blackjack II. Good luck!