Category: Mobile Lifestyle

  • Utada’s English Language Music Video is This Week’s Free iTunes Music Video

    utada_itunes_video

    How often does a father and his teenage daughter agree on anything? So, I find it pretty amusing that my daughter and I actually enjoy the same musical artist named Utada Hikaru (surname – given name order, btw) a lot. I was even more amused when I noticed that Utada’s new English language music video (she’s bilingual, btw) is the iTunes free Music Video of the Week in the U.S. You can find it here…

    Utada: Come Back to Me (iTunes music video)

    It should be free until the end of next week Monday (Mar. 30).

  • BillShrink.com Helps You Cut Costs as the Gas Pump: Revisiting Podcast 17

    TechCrunch reports that…

    BillShrink Brings Its Cost-Cutting Engine To The Gas Pump

    At this point I bet you are saying, “Hey, what does this have to do with mobile technology?” Well, actually, this particular announcement does not. But, it gives me an excuse to point out that I interviewed BillShrink.com’s CEO Peter Pham last month. In that podcast (#17), I asked him how BillShrink.com could help people save money on mobile phone bills.

  • Work at home & on the move? Twitter is my Virtual Water Cooler

    I’ve been a full-time blogger for 3 months now (check out my day job blog MobileAppsToday.com). I’m pretty happy to be working alone and uninterrupted most of the time. But, it is nice to interact with real people now and then too. Although I used Twitter before making this job-lifestyle change, it has become invaluable as my virtual water cooler weather working at home or on the road (with netbook and smartphone(s) in tow).

    I maintain a locked personal Twitter account to talk/tweet with people I actually know for this purpose. It was one of the smartest things I’ve done, I think. I also have a public Twitter account to mostly talk about my work and tweet with people I don’t know personally. You can find this public account at:

    twitter.com/toddogasawara

  • CNN: Bosses worry if telecommuters are really working

    CNN asks…

    Bosses worry if telecommuters are really working

    This is the question that always came up in discussions over years and different employers. I actually telecommuted one-day per week when my child was an infant. That was great. But, the technology to work effectively from home wasn’t in place in my office or my home back in the mid-90s. Today, the technology is here, but the real issue comes down to management trust.

    I telecommute full-time now as Editor of MobileAppsToday. The main thing that is needed, IMHO, is some kind of reasonable metrics. There needs to be some way to measure quantity of work, quality of work, and some kind of ROI on the part of the employer. In my case, quantity is easy: If stuff doesn’t appears on the MobileAppsToday blog, I’m not doing my job. The quality part is, of course, more difficult to get a handle on. And, I don’t have control over the ROI (are my employers getting enough value from their investment in the cost to employee me?).

    Are you telecommunity full-time like me? Part-time? Tried it but gave it up? Want to try telecommuting?

    I worked remotely when I managed the Microsoft Network (MSN) Computer Telephony and Windows CE Forums back in the 90s. I also had a full-time day job at that time. So, I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep :-). So, I have some experience telecommuting. But, this is the first time I’ve telecommuted full-time for my main (day) job. So, any advice would be appreciated. In turn, as I learn more about full-time telecommuting and, especially, its mobile technology aspects, I’ll share them here.