7YK Blog

Oh dear, how sad, it seems yet again there are problems with the Apple iPhone 3G. Reports are coming in according to macenstein.com that some of the White iPhone 3G handsets are apparently developing hairline cracks in their casing.

It appears also that the black iPhone 3G casing is suffering from the same problem but isn’t as noticeable. Maybe whatever compound is used in the black casing is somehow making it more resilient to fracture.

It is unfortunate for those owners of the Apple iPhone 3G White because Apple has not yet recognised there is a problem, (burying their heads again it seems)

Which probably means there will not be any cracked iPhone 3G replacement swaps happening until Apple actually acknowledge there is a problem with the White iPhone 3G, well THE iPhone 3G.

Beside that, with Apple continuing to struggle to get iPhone 3Gs onto store shelves, it will probably be some time before they can replace any defective unit.

Opera Software has launched the latest “State of the Mobile Web,” based on anonymous and aggregated statistics from Opera Mini servers, reports Intomobile.

According to those stats, 6 out of the most popular mobile phone models for browsing with opera Mini are from Nokia, 2 from Sony Ericsson and 1 from Blackberry along with 1 from Samsung.

Although over in the USA, nine of the top ten mobile phones for Opera Mini are RIM BlackBerrys.

Further info from the State of Mobile Web report of June 08: In June, Opera Mini users generated more than 46.7 million megabytes of data for operators worldwide. Thanks to the Opera Mini’s built-in compression of data, the actual amount of data requested was 311 million MB in June. People using Opera Mini viewed more than 3.2 billion pages in June, up 9.4% over May.

Opera “State of the Mobile Web” covers such countries as, the UK, the US, Germany, China, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, and South Africa.

T-Mobile has release an update for the Sidekick LX OTA and Boy Genius has got their hands on it. Boy Genius confirms that other than spell checker, share, and play capabilities, Bluetooth A2DP, alarm clock, Bluetooth file transfer, the Sidekick LX OTA also incorporates video recording and playback.

A quick update on the above is it is looking like the Sidekick LX OTA update is beginning to roll out to the Sidekick masses. So if you still haven’t received the update, be patient and keep waiting.

The Sidekick LX OTA update is somewhat random so should be delivered to Sidekick owners HipTop by the end of August apparently, so the whispers go.

However just to keep you Sidekick LX fans happy pop along to BGR and take a look at their extensive collection of screens of the new updated Sidekick LX UI.

The word roaming the net waves is that Samsung has put the mobile breaks on their upcoming Linux based Samsung i800 mobile phone according to a post on engadget mobile.

This follows on from Asus’s conformation that they are scrapping their plans to release the ASUS ZX1 Lamborghini, ASUS M536, and the ASUS P560 smartphones.

Samsung touted the Samsung i800 as their first step into the Linux based platform as “The World’s first smartphone based on Access Linux Platform (ALP).”

Samsung planned to release the i800 on the Orange network in the UK, but it appears that the handset was “withdrawn in order to… prepare a more competitive Linux mobile.”

It is being said that since Samsung announced the Samsung i800 mobile phone, advancements within the mobile development arena have essentially made the Samsung i800 obsolete. I guess that’s life in the bustling mobile phone industry!

Becoming bored with your already old Motorola Q9h on the AT&T network? Well at least you can update your old Motorola Q9h Norman to the latest Windows Mobile OS available.

We know you are probably frustrated at the super speed of mobile handset development, but you’ll just have to face the fact that upgrading every year is a necessity if you really wish to stay up to date.

However there’s nothing wrong with updating your old handset to the newest OS, and according to a post on WMExperts, it looks as if MOTOMODDING has posted the official AT&T branded Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM for the Motorola Q9h.

The Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM does look to be legit, however as always we advise Motorola owners to proceed with caution, and the official Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM is actually expected to be available for the Motorola Q9h at the end of July anyway, so its not surprising it has been leaked a tad early.

It appears Nokia are fed up with Research In Motion’s encroachment on their business mobile phone segment and according to symbian-guru, Nokia has announced they are to no longer support BlackBerry Connect support on their business E series mobile phones.

Research In Motion are apparently do well enough that Nokia feels a parting of the ways is needed and they will offer their customers more potions in email connectivity.

“RIM are a competitor and have done a reasonable job in a space that is traditionally ours, so it’s no great surprise that we see this as an opportunity to give consumers a proper choice on what email solution they want.”

The recently launched Nokia E71 is the newest mobile handset to go without the BlackBerry Connect feature, which leaves the E71 with only Nokia’s unrefined email client foe emailing.

Nokia Email is presently in beta, but Espoo is betting they polish the upcoming email solution to run head-to-head with Research In Motion’s email solution

Today Vered DeLeeuw from MomGrind suggests ways for turning a mommy blog into a business. These tips are not limited to mommy blogs: they can be applied to personal blogs in general. Image by KellyandApril.

MomGrind is a personal blog. It chronicles my thoughts and struggles. It is where I share a laugh with my readers, ask for their advice, post an occasional feminist rant, and wonder about the meaning of it all.

MomGrind is also a business.

Unlike marketing and business blogs, or even self-improvement and productivity blogs, mommy blogs are highly personal. They tell the story of an individual, the story of a family. “Making your blog more personal” is typically not an issue for mommy bloggers. It happens naturally.

When you talk with mommy bloggers, many of them will tell you that they are not blogging for money. Blogging is an outlet for their daily struggles and frustrations. They blog to document the joys and the frustrations that come with raising children. But mommy bloggers are powerful. They have the power to help big corporations reach an important audience. The big companies know it. Do the moms know it?

If you author a mom blog – or any other personal blog – and would like to turn your blog into a business and earn money doing something that you love, these tips will help you get started:

1. Acknowledge that your blog is a business

This is a crucial first step. Start taking yourself seriously and others will take you seriously too. If you have an opportunity to use direct advertising on your blog, go for it, and sell it for what it’s really worth: don’t leave money on the table. If a company emails you with questions, charge a consulting fee for answering them. Queen of Spain received a consulting fee of $6000 from Disney “for what essentially amounted to a few emails, a survey, and a meeting”. Needless to say, you should set up a Paypal account.

2. Decide how much you are willing to share with your readers

It’s impossible to write a post about mommy blogs without mentioning the queen of mommy blogging, Heather Armstrong. Ms. Armstrong has a very particular style that includes great writing, frequent use of profanity, lots of personal charm, and the ability to make fun of herself and her husband. Her definition of privacy is lax – she readily shares highly private family moments with her readers.

But does one have to use profanity or expose her family affairs on the Internet in order to turn her blog into a lucrative business? I don’t have the answer to this question, although I will venture a guess that if you want to REALLY make it as a mommy blogger, you must be willing to share A LOT. This is a very personal choice, of course. Define your limits, and once you have – be ready to defend them, to others and to yourself.

3. Subscribe to ProBlogger

I am a subscriber and a regular reader. Sure, the posts here are geared toward professional bloggers. But many of them are very relevant to me. For example, Darren’s recent post on 21 Ways To Make Your Blog Sticky was very helpful in improving MomGrind. I implemented several of Darren’s suggestions, including highlighting my best content and creating an engaging “About” page.

4. Educate yourself about advertising

You need to determine when to start using ads on your blog; where to place them to optimize revenue; how many ads to display; and how to handle direct advertising.

5. Start networking

If you want to earn decent money from your blog, you need to have enough daily unique visitors and page views to attract direct advertisers. Even if your content is great, this kind of traffic to your blog will not happen without networking.

A good place to start is visiting other blogs and making comments on them. You should also approach bloggers who run blogs that are approximately the size of your blog or bigger, and offer to write guest posts for them. This will expose you to new readers, and some of them will end up as new subscribers.

Perhaps one of the most important things you can do to build a community around your blog, is to participate in social media sites. Many prominent mommy bloggers, including Dooce, Sweetney and Her Bad Mother, use Twitter.

6. Keep writing about things that are interesting to you

While you should keep your growing audience in mind to some extent, it’s important that you stay true to yourself. Writing content that evokes emotions in your readers (Her Bad Mother excels at that), or content that has a high entertainment value (Dooce is highly entertaining), is fine. In fact, it’s more than fine. Don’t worry about other blogs providing information and advice. You are giving your readers something that is just as valuable: you are making other moms feel like they’re not alone, and in many cases, you are making them laugh.

7. Never apologize for those ad checks

Making money or wanting to make money from your blog is your prerogative. Get over the “good girl” mentality and be proud of your talent, of your networking abilities, of the wonderful, thriving business that you have started from scratch and are building with your own hands. I enjoyed reading another prominent mommy blogger - Don Mills Diva’s - recent post “Show Me The Money”. Don Mills Diva does NOT apologize for aspiring to make money from her blog. I couldn’t agree with her more.

8. Pace yourself

Creating a successful blog takes a lot of work. If you want to do this for the long haul and avoid burnout, it’s important to slow down. Darren recently said that it’s very easy to work 12 hours per day on a blog, if you don’t set limits. My advice: don’t. This is true for every blogger, and it’s especially true for you, because you have children to take care of and to enjoy. Don’t allow the Internet to rob you of enjoying the fleeting moments of your kids’ childhood.

Photo credit: R. Motti (link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/motti/298650667/)

Share This

The word is LG has teamed with Dolby Laboratories to announce that LG will be the first mobile phone manufacturer to incorporate Dolby mobile technology into their mobile phones.

IntoMobile reports, Dolby mobile, which was announced at these years Mobile World Congress is an optimised for mobile audio processing tech platform.

Some of Dolby Mobile’s features which LG hopes to include in their mobile handsets are: Sound Space Expander - creates a wide, rich and spacious soundstage experience especially suited to music playback, Natural Bass - adds powerful boost and bass extension, Mobile Surround, which delivers a realistic surround sound experience using headphones.

Furthermore Dolby Mobile offers up: High Frequency Enhancer - enhances music and other content by restoring high-frequency effects, Sound Level Control - helps level out audio for a more consistent playback volume, Mono-to-Stereo Converter, which improves the playback experience of user-generated content, and Graphic EQ - helps tune the audio experience for different content types.

LG is looking to launch LG handsets including Dolby Mobile beginning Q4 08.

The guys over at Sony Ericsson are to launch more accessories in the future according to semcblog, and I guess they should know. Not surprisingly most of these Sony Ericsson accessories are designed for none other than the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 superphone.

Apparently because of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1’s specs and status they feel the mobile handset deserves special attention, and thus has come up with these accessories.

Here is what Sony Ericsson has come up with… IPC-50 – A splash proof case for outdoor activities, CLA-70 - Cigarette Lighter Adapter for J132 and X1, ISP-90 - Stylus Pack for X1, DMU-70 - Mini-USB Cable for J132 and X1, CMU-20 - Mini-USB Charger for J132 and X1, and the BST-41 - Standard Battery for X1.

And that’s your lot, nothing to get really excited about other than it intimates that maybe Sony Ericsson is edging closer to that XPERIA X1 launch.

Are you one of the super rich and fancy having your own Bling iPhone? A unique way to mark the spirit of the Olympic Games, whose ethos is inclusion, is to bring out a mobile handset that virtually most ordinary folk can’t afford.

Bornrich.org aptly reports that diamond jewellers, De Vere of London has unveiled an 88 diamond studded Olympic iPhone to commemorate the event.

Folk law has it that 88 is considered lucky amongst the Chinese and that 8 stands for wealth, so double 8 stands for double wealth, thus De Veve has blinged the Apple iPhone 3G with 88 shining diamonds.

This particular filthy-rich iPhone 3G holds a weighty price tag of “gasp” £4148, that’s roughly $8224, and one I personally won’t be purchasing as I’m sure most of you won’t.

Oh, and if that’s not enough for the cash laden folk there’s also a version sporting 168 diamonds for a paltry £7800, but the best bit is yet to come…You actually need to supply your own iPhone handset! Bloody cheek!