I wrote a number of earnings stories during this period on AT&T, Microsoft, Motorola and Sprint. But I also got a couple of stories out of covering a Sprint developers' conference in Santa Clara:
I ended the week receiving my demo of the Samsung Moment from Sprint, which I played with over the weekend and posted my review of Nov. 1, the day it went on sale:
I've been blogging the last few months for Persuasive Marketing, a blog site from the firm Attain Marketing, based in North Carolina. Lorraine Kauffman-Hall, who once worked PR for a tech company I covered in Silicon Valley, is now with Attain and asked me to write about PR from the media's perspective. Here are some of the posts:
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a surprise appearance at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco Oct. 14 to "pump you up," he told an audience of technology geeks.
Monday Oct. 12 was a busy day as I tried to keep up with changing developments in the story of T-Mobile dealing with irate customers because they lost the data backup for their Sidekick smartphones. It seems Microsoft and Danger (the latter, the maker of the Sidekick that was acquired by Microsoft in 2008) suffered a server malfunction that wiped out nearly all the data of users it was supposed to be storing.
AT&T is offering a new prepaid calling plan, one of many carriers pushing prepaid plans as an alternative to post-paid plans where the subscriber is tied to a contract for two years.
Tech journalists and others listened with interest when Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison spoke about the pending acquisition of Sun Microsystems during a presentation at the Churchill Club Monday Sept. 21 in San Jose.
Tuesday Aug. 4 was a busy day for me as an Examiner. First, I covered a Churchill Club event in Mountain View featuring Aneesh Chopra, President Obama's chief technology officer:
I also kept up on events related to the release of the Current TV journalists imprisoned in North Korea. I had written about a vigil held for them in San Francisco in June:
The good news: Anticipation is building that Apple will introduce a tablet computer to the market this fall. The story: "Apple Tapplet, Anyone?" The bad news: Apple is telling developers they, not Apple, should pay back customers whose iPhone applications were banished from Apple's App Store. One of the developers relates an absurd and frustrating conversation with an Apple representative from whom he was trying to get answers as to why his app was banned. The story: "Apple, the unbenevolent dictator."
I'd been behind the curve on following this flap over the last week, busy with other assignments. But now the FCC is getting involved in the decision by Apple to ban the VoIP application Google Voice from its App Store. It seems using your iPhone to make calls over a VoIP provider conflicts with the financial interests of AT&T, which is the exclusive carrier in the U.S. for the iPhone. Some say this is anti-competitive and that people Hope FCC can rein in Apple, AT&T.
Line forms outside the Apple store in Santa Clara, Calif., the day the iPhone 3GS goes on sale
A little off the beaten path but not by much. This post, titled "Irish entrepreneurs search for Silicon Valley pot of gold," is about a trade mission to Silicon Valley by some Irish entrepreneurs and economic development advocates. One of them is a guy whose gadget allows people to buy songs to play on their cell or smart-phone via text message.
I've been following the netbook trend of smaller, cheaper laptop computers, including AT&T's adding netbook models to its offering. I snapped this photo of an AT&T employee demonstrating the netbooks at the store in Santa Clara. Also this week I attended OSCON, the Open Source Convention, in San Jose. One interesting session was a tutorial on Symbian, the mobile OS that is little known in the US but the market share leader everywhere else in the world. I was fortunate to run into Laura Merling (see below) of the Symbian Foundation, whom I'd interviewed before when I worked for SD Times and IDG News Service.
Thursday I attended the MobileBeat 2009 conference in San Francisco and wrote about Palm releasing its software development kit for creating applications to run on its Pre smartphone. There were a number of other interesting panels including this one pictured below in which an entrepreneur (far left) pitches his business idea to a panel of investors and other experts. There were several entrepreneurs who spoke. The panel then voted on who had the best idea. It was hosted by Natali Del Conte (second from left) of Cnet and CBS. The day before MobileBeat, I wrote about how Apple, as expected, upgraded iTunes in a way that disabled the sync functionality on Palm Pres running iTunes. Asked about it at MobileBeat, Palm's Michael Abbot (pictured here) could only reiterate the company line that Apple is only hurting its own iTunes users by preventing syncing on Pre, but that there are workarounds to continue to add songs to your iTunes library on Pre. Also, I took a look at SmartSwipe, a credit card reader that someone can plug into their computer to make purchases online. Secure, for sure, but a potential enabler of binge shopping.
Here's another Examiner post I wrote about how the popularity of the new iPhone has given a boost to the market for refurbished iPhones and other smartphones. It includes mention of a friend of mine, Tara Sims (right, with me in photo below), who bought the 3GS and didn't just throw her BlackBerry in the back of a drawer, but gave it to charity. Elsewhere, at least one company pays people for their old iPhones and refurbishes them. RapidRepair, in Michigan, was flooded with requests from new 3GS owners to buy their first and second generation iPhones from them for up to $200.
It's been another busy week for me at Examiner.com.
I went off my gadgets beat for this story on Two Journalists Held in North Korea (right) as I attended a vigil in their honor in San Francisco. I added a slide show of photos I took at the event.
Then I wrote about The Wonderful World of (Gadget) Color about how product designers are using bright colors to distinguish their new gadgets from the basic and boring black and grey of previous models.
Back on the Bluetooth beat, after a couple of stories about Santa Cruz-based Plantronics, I got to try out the new Jawbone Prime (left) from competitor Aliph for a few days.
As part of my continuing coverage of new smartphone introductions, I revisited the Palm Pre for a story on how its sales have exceeded expectations.
AT&T Mobility made some news this week by announcing it's going to start selling netbooks to small business customers who can use the carrier's wireless broadband service.
And lastly, I noted the passing of Michael Jackson in a post noting how social media, on gadgets like smartphones and laptops, spread the word of his death.
Monday June 22 was a busy day for me on the tech beat with three posts:
Here's a post about a guy who takes brand new tech devices, like the iPhone 3GS, and tears them apart to see what's inside. "OMG! My new iPhone! In pieces!" For the first time since he went on medical leave in January, Steve Jobs was quoted in an Apple news release, this time about opening weekend box office for the iPhone 3GS. "Steve Jobs back on the job?"
Kudos are in order to the people at the New York Times with a timely report about the culture of secrecy at Apple.
Like a lot of other tech journalists, I was drawn Friday morning to my friendly local neighborhood Apple store to witness the launch of the new iPhone 3G S. Here's the story I posted on Examiner.com: "New Apple iPhone goes on sale."
An Apple employee demos the iPhone 3G S to customers at Apple's Valley Fair Mall Store.
Also, word came out today in the Wall Street Journal that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a liver transplant. I can't link to the story because WSJ is password-protected, but here's the San Jose Mercury News report on the WSJ story.
Just two days after the Pre launch, Apple introduced the new iPhone 3G S. What's worse, for Palm, is Apple lowered the price of the existing Palm 3G to $99, half of what the Pre goes for after rebate. But they're on different carriers. I wrote about the new iPhone for ITWorld.com and then wrote a separate post on Examiner.com about one of the nifty apps on iPhone, Find My iPhone.
I've also written additional stories for ITWorld, including this from JavaOne about an RFID company called Touchatag and another JavaOne story about the proliferation of app stores.
I just completed a freelance assignment covering the RSA Conference 2009 for RSA.
I wrote 17 stories that were posted on the conference Web site during the week long event April 20-24. I interviewed keynoters and wrote stories on several of the breakout sessions. Here are just a few:
"Lax security can invite lawsuits" is about a panel discussion, moderated by CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, about legal issues related to e-discovery and company liability for data breaches.
"Innovation Sandbox winner announced" is about a competition among early-stage tech security companies who presented their innovations and business plans to a panel of judges.
"Tackling Cyber Security Challenges Today" was a very interesting panel about how the U.S. government, including the National Security Agency, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, are trying to protect cyberspace from attack.
I posted another blog item on Examiner.com about a new Bluetooth headset product coming from Plantronics. If you go to this page and bookmark it, you will see all my Examiner posts on one page as I make them.
I finally started posting articles in the last week for Examiner.com, the blogging site for the San Francisco Examiner newspaper. The paper has recruited an army of several hundred bloggers, mostly in the Bay Area but also in some other U.S. cities, to write about everything under the sun. We make a pittance, but it could result in some valuable exposure and help build a porfolio of articles. Here are the first four articles I wrote:
I learned about the state of the venture capital industry at another Churchill Club forum, this one in Palo Alto. It featured three VCs and an angel investor Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn. The story I posted on Suite101.com is titled "Top 20 VC Firms Should be Okay."
I accepted a recent invitation to attend a meeting of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Silicon Valley Chapter. The program, held at Microsoft's campus in Mountain View, featured two technology reporters and an editor from the San Francisco bureau of The New York Times. They spoke about how they work with PR people, like the 50 or so at the event and how they are adapting to the new media landscape of distributing news online, on blogs and even via Twitter. I wrote about the event for Suite101.com in an article titled: "Newspapers Have to Adapt or Die."
I’d seen stories on TV news about how people who’d lost their homes just packed up what they could into their cars, after which crews would come and clear out everything else they’d left behind. This Sunday I saw it happen in my own neighborhood.
A bank-owned home being "trashed-out" in Santa Clara.
I was walking my dog in a light afternoon rain when I came upon this scene: a “Bank Owned” real estate sign planted in front of a modest three-bedroom tan stucco-walled home in the 500 block of Chapman Court, just off The Alameda, in Santa Clara. Parked across the street was a dumpster, filled with a mattress, armchairs, shelves and other possessions that had made that house a home. Shuttling back and forth between the house and the dumpster were three men working in what is one of the fastest-growing jobs in the country: clearing out foreclosed homes.
The crew leader, José, said he works for a Las Vegas company that, despite being overwhelmed with work clearing out homes in that distressed market, dispatched him here where there is also plenty of work. Since he arrived in the San Jose area seven days ago, José said he’s not had a day off and averages 16 of these house-clearing projects a day.
Banks and mortgage lenders hire such companies to clear out foreclosed homes and clean them up so they can be put back on the market as quickly as possible, so the lender can make some of their money back.
A child's school photo left behind
The onetime owner of the Chapman Court house did come back after moving out to retrieve some valuable items, José said, such as TV sets or computers, and what was left behind was rightly headed to the landfill or at best a rummage sale. But I’ve seen cases in which seemingly everything was left behind. A report aired on a recent "NBC Nightly News" but I'm having trouble including the link. But here's another reportfrom PBS’s “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” from Oct. 2008 on clearing out abandoned homes.
In the NBC report, golf clubs, sofas, paintings and some personal items are taken away by “trash-out companies” and while some items are set aside to be given to charities, many were simply thrown out.In the PBS report, residents left behind newer TVs, computers, important documents like a birth certificate and other perfectly good items.
A dumpster of what had made this house a home
It’s bad enough that people lose their homes. But I find it just heartbreaking that people find themselves in such desperate straits that they have neither the time nor the resources to try to save some of their belongings in order to furnish their next home, even if it’s only going to be a rental.
I am a contract marketing writer for a network security company in Silicon Valley. I have also been a technology reporter with more than a decade of experience covering news in Silicon Valley. Before that, I was a business reporter for newspapers and started my career in public radio. On a personal note, I am the fifth of nine children of George and Mary Mullins and am one of 30 cousins on my mom's side of the family, the McCorrys. I was born and raised in Wauwatosa, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee.
Internet-ready Ford F-150 at Sprint conference
Samsung Moment from Sprint
