Time Matters and smart phones
I have fielded a few concerns from customers regarding the purchase of a new smart phone and its potential behind syncing with Time Matters. Although TM has provided several options for this via Blackberry, Palm OS and Windows Mobile devices, the choices can be limiting especially where a firm is riding the bleeding edge of today's new technologies.

We can't expect our beloved app to predict the future nor for it's developers to allow synchronization for every mobile device in the field. What we can do is to look for options that will meet the needs of the customer while not creating more headaches in the support and installation roles.

While many of you are familiar with Data Equity and their line of products, I wanted to take a moment to give a wink and a nod to Steve Stockstill for creating an outstanding application which serves the very purpose of this article. His MobileTM product will allow for any smart phone with a Web browser to access your TM records from anywhere that a 3G cell signal or WiFi connection exists.

This is a big deal for those that are looking to migrate to newer cell models such as the Droid or iPhone. At present there are no write to capabilities which means that your access is read only. This should not limit your interest in the product, however. Steve has a good article on his blog called "10 Things MobileTM Does - That Synchronizing Will Never Do" which provides some supportive information for MobileTM.

The following screenshots were taken from the DataEquity Website:

Palm Pre iPhone Google Android   Netbook

We have been working with Mobile TM for some time and have directed several customers to it. Setup was easy and the product has been very reliable. It receives a raised eyebrow whenever I demo the app to prospective customers or colleagues.

With all that said, take a minute to file this away for the next customer to ask about alternatives and see if this product will meet the need.

The secret behind our newsletter
As I was putting this months newsletter together I thought about the application that runs behind the scenes. We have recently changed ISPs and had the need to find a provisional newsletter solution until we could settle down. Our ISP utilizes phplist 2.10 which is a free open source product which runs on a combination of MySQL, PHP, Apache and Linux.

Installation was a snap in that I used FTP to upload my installer and unzipped it into an appropriate directory. I then followed the documentation on the Website and executed the install by accessing a page through my browser and the configuration was initiated.

The interface is accessible through my Web browser and allows me to add/change/remove newsletter subscriptions as well as to manage the HTML. Our ISP will not allow more than 180 emails to be sent in a single session so we have broken down our users into smaller lists and send to one list per day. phplist allows me to schedule the newsletter in advance which is a real bonus. I also have several automated functions which, should I ever have a problem, allow me to troubleshoot without having to leave the browser. These features include dbcheck and a decent event log.

I had looked at several commercial online alternatives including ConstantContact and iContact both of which have a nominal monthly fee. They provide several ancillary services such as online surveys and feedback which I consider to be nice but not mandatory for our needs. The phplist service is free but does require some effort to get operational (installation of the required supporting applications) although nothing that the typical TM CIC would not encounter in the field.

I made several dry runs (sorry about all of those incoming emails, Bill) before sending out our first communication using the new system. When sending a test message you get an HTML and plain text version to preview before going live. The plain text copy is what phplist will default to should it receive a bounce from the mail server declining the HTML version. It is a very crude way of getting your information out to to your recipients but will do in a pinch. 

We are pretty happy with phplist although I run into formatting issues occasionally. With a little observation and friendly emails from the readers I am usually able to rectify these with little difficulty.

How to make Outlook submit
Good Googly Moogly! I can't believe that I haven't put this in prior to this month...

Some time ago I installed an app called Xobni (for those that like puzzles, that's inbox spelled backwards) in an attempt to find a way to manage that unruly set of email folders.

Office 2007 does a decent job of finding that obscure email that I tucked away years ago but some of the PCs that I use have Office 2003. Xobni is the perfect tool for finding the stuff that I tucked away (seemed like the thing to do at the time) in the foolish belief that I would never really need it. Now, two years later I need to pull up that communication. Using the search feature in 2003 is futile at best. Enter stage right the Xobni application. Installation was a snap and after allowing the software to index my email files I was forwarding my hard to find email to its recipient in just a few minutes. Xobni comes armed with several social networking interfaces which pull information from your accounts and provides it as reference material for your contact list. It's nice to have a face to match the name although a Facebook account is not mandatory for this as pics can be assigned manually through the interface. If you are using salesforce.com then there is also an interface for that. Another trick feature is the email counter. This nifty function counts the number of emails that each of my contacts has sent me (based on the items that I have stored in my .pst file) and gives each a ranking (my number one email fan is still my previous LexisNexis manager). It also produces statistics such as the most common times of day that your contacts, well, contact you. Many times I am unable to recall the subject line or sender of said lost email. Xobni permits me to provide it one obscure detail regarding the message that I am looking for and it will whip up a list of matches. Can't recall when

you sent the message? Just tell Xobni what the partial name of the file that was attached was called. Forget the name of the distribution list that received the email that you want to recall? Just include one of the participant names in your search.